Special to WorldTribune.com LONDON — The powerful business elite in Syria is said to be steadily withdrawing from the regime of President Bashar Assad. Western diplomats and opposition sources said leading Syrian industrialists and investors were quietly transferring their funds out of the country. They said the most powerful element of the elite, based in […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Fariborz Saremi, FreePressers.com American and Israeli attitudes to the risk posed by an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons are based on diverging historical experiences. Having seen previous strategies fail to achieve their objectives, President Barack Obama is apparently set on pursuing a policy that focuses on hard international sanctions. A […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have lambasted Russia’s veto of a Security Council resolution on Syria, calling it a “travesty,” but did she really think for a moment that Moscow was going to ditch an old political ally? Did Hillary moreover really believe that Beijing was going to […]
Sol W. Sanders Looking around the world, the striking characteristic is waiting out a number of crises. Their outcome seems almost artificially suspended, and their interaction on one another and their ultimate effect on the world is at issue. We start with the Euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s supplications in Beijing were perhaps laudable but a […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — When the government of erstwhile U.S. ally Egypt shut down seventeen Western pro-democracy groups, trashed their Cairo offices, and slapped travel bans on some of their staff, political relations between Washington and Cairo hit a new and unexpected low. Just a year after a tumultuous political uprising topped the […]
Sol W. Sanders Diverted by the essential — if sometimes burlesqued — pursuit of America’s quadrennial search for leadership, policymakers have tried to put international problems on hold. But dealing with wannabe-totalitarian outcroppings throughout the Islamic world from Casablanca to Zamboanga, is as critical and demanding and may take as long as the struggle with […]
Special to WorldTribune.com WASHINGTON — A U.S. company has presented a maritime solution to Iran’s threat to the Gulf. Juliet Marine Systems, based in Portsmouth, N.H., has been briefing major defense contractors and governments on its new fast attack craft. Juliet asserted that the platform, called Ghost, was designed to protect the Iranian-dominated Strait of […]
Sol W. Sanders President Barack Obama has launched new international diplomatic poker with “a trailing hand”. It is impossible to exaggerate the forces at play, economic as well as political, foreign and domestic, and their interplay. When he signed Dec. 31st the latest Iran provisos, Mr. Obama was handed new clout to cut Iran’s energy […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Though it’s the birthplace of Christianity in ancient times, the modern Middle East is increasingly hostile to Christianity as civil conflict, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism grow in scope and strength. Although most regional states have a small but successful Christian minority ranging from Egypt to Iraq, only Lebanon, Israel […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ABU DHABI — Saudi Arabia’s religious police force plans to deploy advanced technology. The religious police, called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, has signed an agreement to receive a range of technology from the state-owned King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology. The accord, […]
