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Syria’s Neighbors Have Rising Anxiety about Crisis (Three Aljazeera Videos)
Turkey is strategizing how to limit the impact of the Syria war on Turkey. Ankara is particularly concerned by the emergence of a relatively autonomous Kurdish area in northern Syria, fearing that PKK guerrillas might find refuge there. Turkey is also deeply worried about chemical weapons falling into hands of various sorts of guerrillas. Turkey [...]
A U.N. Appeal to Save Syria
After more than two years of conflict and more than 70,000 deaths, including thousands of children. ... After more than five million people have been forced to leave their homes, including over a million refugees living in severely stressed neighboring...
UN Women in Afghanistan Strongly Condemns “Honour Killings” of Women and Girls
Recently several cases of “Honour Killings” have been reported by the media and Afghan Women’s Network (AWN) recorded three cases of such killings across the country during the month of March. This includes a young girl buried alive by her brother and father in Kishim district of Badakhshan Province.
Global Warming is Making the Arid Middle East Even Drier, Threatening Water Wars
Middle East is getting drier because of climate change, impelling people to replace lost rain water with underground fossil or aquifer water that cannot be replaced. From 2003-2009, enough of this aquifer water was permanently drained off to meet the needs of 100 million people. Some Middle East specialists are afraid that wars over water [...]
Saudi Arabia: Website Editor Facing Death Penalty (Encouraged Peaceful Religious Discussion)
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email Saudi authorities should immediately drop all charges against the detained editor of a website created to foster debate about religion and religious figures in Saudi Arabia ...
Girls Determined to Fight Guns With Books
Shazia Begum, one of three girls injured in the attack on the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai says the Taliban had sought to silence a very influential schoolgirl. “Malala is a source of inspiration for all of the students in Swat,” Shazia Begum told IPS at the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar where she is being [...]
UN: 1.5 Million Syrians in Need of Food Aid
The spike in the number of Syrians needing food, or money to buy food, has come as fighting has forced families to leave homes and jobs, with little hope of supporting themselves elsewhere. (..) In New York, the U.N.'s World Food Program warned that it...
Three Million Syrians Need Food, Crops And Livestock Assistance, UN Report Finds
Poor families in parts of Syria affected by the recent conflict need both immediate food aid and help with ensuring food production in coming months. Seeds, food for animals and repairs to irrigation systems are all necessary if livelihoods are to be s...
Secret Pentagon Docs Reveal Pre-War Plans to Get Big Oil into Iraq
Bloomberg reports: "Iraq’s crude production overtook Iran’s last month for the first time in more than two decades... The rising rate of Iraqi production comes as foreign investors such as ExxonMobil Corp. and BP are developing new fields and reworking older deposits."
GREG MUTTITT, dlee at thenewpress.com
Currently touring the U.S., Muttitt (based in London) is author of the just-released Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. He said today: "Government officials meeting in the Pentagon before the Iraq war planned to use the U.S. occupation to open the country to Big Oil. The documents, marked SECRET/NOFORN, were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and reveal for the first time the role of the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group, which was established in 2002 by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith to plan how to run the Iraqi oil industry under the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Thousands flee Syria fighting, face food shortage
Thousands of families in Syria have fled their homes in the past two weeks due to heavy fighting between government forces and rebels and many face food shortages, the United Nations said on Friday. Food prices have tripled in parts of seven provinces ...
