Diplomacy & Crisis News

Nos avenirs nous appartiennent. Encore faut-il les imaginer et les rendre contagieux. Un collectif d'auteurs de science-fiction, ou plutôt de « science-friction », choisit de créer des outils de libération des imaginaires, et de les propager. / France, Fiction, Littérature, Science - (...) / France, Fiction, Littérature, Science - 2020/02

Just after 10:30 AM on August 7, 1998, two truck bombs exploded within minutes of each other outside the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people—12 of them Americans—and wounding more than 5,000 others. In the days that followed, the FBI and the CIA briefed U.S. President Bill Clinton on those they believed were responsible. “This one is a slam dunk, Mr. President,” said the CIA’s basketball-loving director, George Tenet. “There is no doubt that this was an al Qaeda operation.”

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More than 800 people died last year crossing deserts, rivers and remote lands while migrating across the Americas, making 2019 one of deadliest years on record, the UN migration agency said on Tuesday.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen told an emergency session of the Security Council on Tuesday that a recent upsurge in violence between pro-Government and rebel forces following weeks of relative calm, had to end “before it’s too late”.

The number of people fleeing to Chad to escape ongoing tensions in Sudan’s West Darfur state, could reach 30,000 in the coming weeks, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday. 

The President of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday encouraged Member States to support a new panel that has been set up to help make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a reality, by 2030.  

À la mi-janvier, plus de 4 millions d'euros avaient été récoltés pour soutenir les travailleurs mobilisés contre le projet de réforme des retraites. Apparues au XIXe siècle, les caisses de solidarité ont rarement suffi à compenser les pertes de salaire dues à la grève. C'est pourquoi le mouvement ouvrier (...) / France, Parti politique, Communisme, Politique, Histoire, Solidarité, Syndicalisme, Mouvement de contestation, Socialisme, Extrême gauche - 2020/02

A new UN report published on Tuesday shows that while considerable effort has been made by Iraqi authorities to bring former ISIL terrorist fighters to justice, there are “serious concerns” about the fairness of the proceedings. 

L'Union européenne définit désormais comme « maltraitance » l'« absence de disponibilité affective » ou l'« incapacité à favoriser l'adaptation sociale de l'enfant ». Des principes qui s'imposent en premier lieu aux mères. / Enfance, Femmes, Idées, Santé - (...) / Enfance, Femmes, Idées, Santé - 2011/05

http://www.quiz-maker.com/QYYO0LT

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TEHRAN, IRAN – (Photo by Pool / Press Office of Iranian Supreme Leader/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Iraqi human rights activist Ammar Al Hamadani is a strong supporter of the State of Israel and seeks the establishment of an Israeli Embassy in Baghdad.  He also supports compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries and has done much work in order to promote improved Israeli-Iraqi relations.  Given his strong sympathy for the Jewish people and the State of Israel, he praised US President Donald Trump for eliminating Al Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, emphasizing that the move greatly assisted not only Israel’s national security but also the well-being of Iraqi protesters like himself, who envision a future where Iraq and Israel are living in peace with one another.    

“Soleimani is a dangerous terrorist,” he declared.  “He murdered and kidnapped Iranian and Iraqi protesters.  He attacked American forces in Iraq, killing American, British and coalition forces.  He attacked the Saudi oil wells.  He destabilized the security and stability of the Arab Gulf states by blackmailing them and interfering in their internal affairs.  He attacked the military base in Kirkuk, killing an American citizen.  He stormed the US Embassy in Baghdad, endangering American diplomats.  Furthermore, he planned to launch a major terror attack against American forces after storming the American Embassy.”

Al Hamadani believes that all of Iran’s actions against the US are designed in order to compel the Americans to return to the nuclear deal and to lift sanctions against Tehran: “US President Donald Trump correctly dealt with the Iranian provocations, using the military solution as well as diplomatic and political means by inviting the Iranian regime to negotiate.”  Al Hamadani does not believe that Iran will attack the US directly but rather will use its proxies against the Americans following the elimination of Soleimani.  He does not think that this will escalate into an Iranian-American war but rather will be a war of attrition, where America’s proxies fight against the mullah’s regimes militias.

In light of this, Al Hamadani urges the United States to support the Iranian and Iraqi protesters, stressing that if Iraq successfully expels Iran from the country, it will greatly weaken the mullah’s regime for it will be harder for Iran to get around the US imposed sanctions.  To date, Iran has been using Iraq in order to bypass US-led sanctions.  He claims by getting Iran expelled by Iraq via supporting the Iraqi protesters, Iran could end up finding itself in a situation where they are forced to renegotiate the nuclear deal so that it is more favorable to the US for they will be heavily pressured by domestic protests and will have lost one of their main proxies, Iraq. 

Al Hamadani emphasizes that the Iranian militias that attacked the US Embassy in Baghdad don’t represent most Iraqi people: “Most Iraqis view the storming of the American Embassy in Baghdad to be a cowardly, treacherous and terrorist act.  They view America to be an ally and friend of Iraq.  This harms the interests of the Iraqi people and threatens its foreign policy.  American forces should remain in Iraq and not withdraw for if they leave Iraq, Iran will occupy Iraq and threaten the security of the State of Israel and its allies in the region.”   For this reason, he urged America to support the Iraqi and Iranian protesters rather than withdraw from the Middle East.     

 

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Communities in northern Ghana are benefiting from the rehabilitation of water sources which is expected to boost livelihoods and build resilience against climate change, thanks to a project supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). 

Des centaines de personnes se sont rassemblées, le 15 février 2000, pour assister à une discussion philosophique sur la mémoire. Bernard-Henri Levy et Alain Finkielkraut, invités de l'Institut d'études levinassiennes, tentaient de dégager le « sens » d'Auschwitz et le caractère unique de l'Holocauste. (...) / Israël, Histoire, Nazisme, Racisme - 2001/04

A surge in violence in the central Sahel region in Africa means nearly five million children will need humanitarian assistance this year, up from 4.3 million, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday. 

When the Nazis invaded Poland, overnight, nine-year-old Theodor Meron became “a refugee, out of school, out of childhood and constantly in clear and present danger”, the man who would later become a Judge for International Criminal Tribunals told the United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony on Monday.

The head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) is in China to discuss the novel coronavirus outbreak with senior Government officials. 

New technologies were supposed to open societies and empower individuals. Instead, they've given despots the upper hand.

Selon la Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés, de 22 % à 37 % des informations du fichier informatisé des infractions constatées de la police française sont erronées. Néanmoins, un vote du Sénat, le 15 juillet, a permis l'assouplissement des lois de contrôle des fichiers d'Etat ! (...) / États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Criminalité, Informatique, Sécurité, Police, Science, Société, Technologies de l'information, Technologie, Télésurveillance - 2004/08

Tandis que les Etats-Unis poursuivent le retrait de leurs troupes, les élections législatives de ce mois-ci devraient, selon Washington, assurer le retour à une certaine normalité. Pourtant, les tensions persistent, et le scrutin confirmera l'instauration d'un pouvoir corrompu et autoritaire. / (...) / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Irak, Guérilla, Islam, Réfugiés, Violence, Stratégie militaire, Guerre d'Irak 2003-2011 - 2010/03

In the last three years, tragic scenes of poverty and mayhem have dominated the coverage of Venezuela, a nation that used to be one of the wealthiest and most democratic countries in South America. Venezuela has become both a byword for failure and, curiously, something of an ideological hot potato, a rhetorical device dropped into political conversations around the world.

[Lea la versión de este artículo en español este lunes.] 

In election campaigns from Brazil to Mexico, Italy to the United States, politicians invoke Venezuela as a cautionary tale of the dangers of socialism. Left-wing candidates from Jeremy Corbyn, in the United Kingdom, to Pablo Iglesias, in Spain, find themselves accused of sympathizing with socialist Chavismo—and suffer real political damage from the association with Venezuela’s rulers. The charge, endlessly repeated, is that Venezuela’s failure is the failure of an ideology; socialism is to blame, and if you make the wrong choice at the ballot box, the chaos of Venezuela could come to your doorstep, too.

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