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The International Forum on Ethnic Cleansing and Demographic Change in Afrin will be launched after a while. In this report, we will show you the participants of the forum and the axes of its first day, which is held at Baylasan Hall in Amouda district, northern Syria. 02 Dec 2018, Sun - 07:15 QAMISHLOUnder the auspices of Rojava Center for Strategic Studies, in the presence of hundreds of local, regional and international political figures and dozens of civil society organizations, the International Forum on Ethnic Cleansing and Demographic Change in Afrin will soon begin.The forum will last for three days...

WASHINGTON - Two police departments in the northeastern United States decided over the past week to cancel their participation in a program that involves visiting Israel and meeting Israeli police officers, due to public pressure by a coalition of progressive organisations, including a number of groups affiliated with the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement (BDS).

A number of pro-Iranian militia bases and Iranian weapons caches in southern Syria were targeted by Israeli airstrikes on Thursday night, according to the Al-Arabiya news site. Explosions were also reported in and around the Syrian capital of Damascus, near its international airport, which Israel claims has been used by Iran to supply terror groups with advanced weaponry...The Israel Defense Forces refused to comment on Thursday night’s reported airstrikes, but denied a Russian media claim that an Israeli plane had been shot down. "The reports of an Israeli aircraft or other Israeli aerial platform being hit are false," the army...

Syrian reporter: In Syria there is atmosphere of eve of war Exclusive: In conversation in Damascus, senior Syrian journalist tells about sentiments in Syria ('as if there will be war any moment'); talks about military preparations in his country ('identifying your reinforcements in Golan Heights'); and estimates that Israeli pounding in Lebanon to intensify grassroots support of Nasrallah and his organization. Also in Syria, he says, Nasrallah more popular than ever Ali Waked As the conflict with Hizbullah in Lebanon escalates by the day, the question of Syria's involvement in the conflict becomes increasingly more relevant. "The atmosphere in Syria...

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Erdogan, Mr Abbas, members of the clergy, foreign guests, friends, Let me congratulate you from all my heart on the opening of Moscow’s rebuilt Cathedral Mosque. This is a big event for all Muslims in Russia. One of Moscow’s oldest mosques stood on this historical site and has undergone reconstruction that now makes it the biggest in Europe. It was given a magnificent modern new look worthy of the capital of our united, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional country. This new mosque is worthy of Russia, in which, I want to stress, Islam, under our country’s...

But Democrats view it as yet another expression of the prime minister’s overzealous backing for a despised U.S. president The Mossad’s Kidon unit, which foreign media describe as Israel’s official assassination squad, must be worried sick over the fallout from the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Alongside its many successful hits, some of which are surely still unknown, Kidon’s men (and presumably women) have also known notorious failures, including the mistaken 1970 killing of Moroccan waiter Ahmed Bouchiki in Lillehammer, Norway, the failed 1997 assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Jordan and...

Volume 7, No. 3 - September 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE COLD WAR'S LONGEST COVER-UP: HOW AND WHY THE USSR INSTIGATED THE 1967 WAR By Isabella Ginor The Soviet warning to Egypt about supposed Israeli troop concentrations on the Syrian border in May 1967 has long been considered a blunder that precipitated a war which the USSR neither desired nor expected. New evidence from Soviet and other Warsaw Pact documents, as well as memoirs of contemporary actors, contradicts this accepted theory. The author demonstrates that this warning was deliberate disinformation, part of a plan approved at the highest level of Soviet leadership...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – Amb. Kenneth Ward strongly criticized Iran and Russia on Thursday for maintaining chemical weapons programs, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention to which they are both signatories. Ward, the US Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), addressing that organization, cited Iran and Russia for their own chemical weapons programs. He also criticized their support for Damascus, which, he said, is “enabling Syria’s chemical weapons use by shielding the Assad regime from consequences in international fora.” Turning to Iran, Ward explained that the US “has had longstanding concerns that [it]...

BERLIN — Denmark became the second European country to halt future arms exports to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, following a similar decision by neighboring Germany earlier this month. The Danish announcement comes the same week President Trump backed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA assessing that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Denmark’s ban includes goods that can be used both for military and civilian purposes but is still less expansive than the German measures, which also included sales that had already been approved. While the Nordic country is a tiny arms equipment exporter in...

At the height of the media storm over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, otherwise known as MBS, met with a visiting delegation of evangelical Christians from the U.S. for two hours. One of the Saudi attendees was the General Secretary of the Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL), Dr. Mohammad Al-‘Issa. The MWL was a major engine for the propagation and spread of Wahabist jihad throughout the Western world since it was formed by the Saudi regime in the 1960s. The MWL founded the...

I am already sick of Turkey.I suspect that many Americans feel this way, about the bird and the country. Yet a small group of Washington foreign policy hands — at State Department, at Pentagon and in congressional offices — continue to make the case for Turkey as a “strategically important” partner to the US. On paper, the country looks good: It sits at the center of many of Americas most pressing foreign policy concerns, it is a member of NATO, it's stable, and it can offer foreign partners access to its airbases and intelligence cooperation. I used to think of...

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries will likely need to cut crude supplies, perhaps as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, to rebalance the market after proposed U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday.

President Donald Trump has reportedly shelved his ‘deal of the century’ peace plan, at least for now, Palestinian Authority media outlets reported on Thursday. The decision was taken after Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reportedly recommended that the White House postpone the publication of the initiative because of the political and security crisis in Israel, according to the Palestinian Authority paper Al-Quds. An unnamed Israeli diplomatic source said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "prefers no ‎announcement of the plan whatsoever, especially now, amid the ‎recent developments in the region and the political ‎crisis in Israel." The Trump...

The 633-word statement of President Donald Trump on the Saudi royals' role in the grisly murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi is a remarkable document, not only for its ice-cold candor. The president re-raises a question that has roiled the nation since Jimmy Carter: To what degree should we allow idealistic values trump vital interests in determining foreign policy? On the matter of who ordered the killing of Khashoggi, Trump does not rule out the crown prince as prime suspect: "King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the...

Mr. Trump’s sidestepping of reports that the C.I.A. believes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing as “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” was jarring. But every president since Harry Truman has aligned with unsavory Middle Eastern rulers in the service of national interests. The difference here is that Mr. Trump seemed unapologetic about this state of affairs with only a passing nod to the affront to our values that Mr. Khashoggi’s murder represents. That’s nothing to cheer. But it is vitally important to evaluate the policy on its merits more than its mode of expression. And...

Following the sinking of one of the world’s largest dry docks on October 29 in a shipyard in the far northwest part of Russia, officials have finally admitted that they are unable to continue work on Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, for the time being. While Russia’s shipbuilding industry is reportedly looking into alternatives, no timely and viable solution to continue retrofitting work on the Russian Navy’s flagship has emerged to date. “We have alternatives actually for all the ships except for [the aircraft carrier] Admiral Kuznetsov. Our enterprises are in operation, [including] the Nerpa [Ship Repair Factory],”...

A multi-disciplinary team of scientists has a new theory for why all human civilization abruptly ended on the banks of the Dead Sea some 3,700 years ago. According to analyzed archaeological evidence, the disaster of biblical proportions can be explained by a massive explosion, similar to one recorded over 100 years ago in Russia. […] As reported in Science News, at the recently concluded Denver-based ASOR Annual Meeting, director of scientific analysis at Jordan’s Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project Phillip J. Silvia presented a paper, “The 3.7kaBP Middle Ghor Event: Catastrophic Termination of a Bronze Age Civilization” during a session on...

Fighting erupted on Sunday between rival factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition in Syria’s Afrin, leaving 11 dead and 27 wounded, according to a war monitor.  The Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwestern Syria was taken over by Turkish forces and their Syrian opposition proxies in March this year.  The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-Ankara Syrian opposition groups launched an assault on Sunday morning against the al-Sharqiya Martyrs, which had helped Turkey in the Afrin offensive.  The group, which is part of Ahrar Sharqiya brigade, is led by Abu Khula and consists of around 200 fighters. It...

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Stephanie Parker isn't quite sure how her family of six would have managed the last two months without the help of Michael Jordan and the American Red Cross following Hurricane Florence. So when Parker met Jordan on Tuesday she couldn't hold back giving the owner of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets a big hug and a thank you. "It means he hasn't forgotten," Parker told The Associated Press about Jordan's visit to Wilmington, North Carolina. "It means we are important." Jordan returned to his hometown wearing North Carolina Tar Heels blue and met with some hurricane victims, many...

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the country will continue to export oil despite fresh U.S. sanctions, which he described as “psychological war doomed to failure.” “We will not yield to this pressure which is part of the psychological war launched against Iran,” he said on state TV. “They have failed to stop our oil exports. We will keep exporting it ... Your regional policies have failed and you blame Iran for that failure from Afghanistan to Yemen and Syria,” he added, to chants of “Death to America!”. Rouhani also said that the U.S. lacked international support for...