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Blair Peterson

Who makes US foreign policy, and how? Analysis by Nathaniel Sheppard Jr. - 1 views

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    Sample of individuals and groups making foreign policy.
Blair Peterson

Club Med for Terrorists - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • It says a great deal that Hamas’s former Arab backers, which historically have included Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, long ago abandoned the terrorist group. Only a few nations still stand by Hamas. Among the most prominent is the tiny Persian Gulf emirate Qatar.
  • In recent years, the sheikhs of Doha, Qatar’s capital, have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza. Every one of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read “Made possible through a kind donation from the emir of Qatar.”
  • Qatar’s proxies of choice have been radical regimes and extremist groups.
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  • This hasn’t stopped the Persian Gulf monarchy from serving as a Club Med for terrorists. It harbors leading Islamist radicals like the spiritual leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who issued a religious fatwa endorsing suicide attacks, and the Doha-based history professor Abdul Rahman Omeir al-Naimi, whom the United States Department of Treasury has named as a “terrorist financier” for Al Qaeda. Qatar also funds a life of luxury for Khaled Meshal, the fugitive leader of Hamas.
Blair Peterson

Syria's refugees: fears of abuse grow as Turkish men snap up wives | World news | The G... - 0 views

  • Aminah is one of an increasing number of Syrian refugees who opt to marry Turkish men. Women's rights groups are worried: "A lot of women agree to these marriages out of sheer desperation. All they think about is how to feed their family, how to make ends meet. These arrangements might seem like the only way out, and men exploit this," says one activist from Gaziantep, who wished to remain anonymous. "At the same time, local women feel helpless and anxious about their own families breaking apart. Women on both sides of the border become victims this way."
    • Blair Peterson
       
      Down below is says that 4000 Syrian women have married Turkish men. Are they all being taken advantage of?
  • Turkish authorities put the number of Syrian refugees in the country at nearly 1 million, a figure projected to rise by the end of the year to 1.4 million.
  • women and children constitute 75% of refugees in Turkey, with under-18s accounting for 50%. I
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  • Human trafficking and all problems associated with it – abuse, rape and exploitation – have increased since 2012,"
  • Turkish human rights groups warn that polygamy, outlawed in Turkey almost a century ago but still practised in conservative rural areas in south-eastern Anatolia, is on the rise. Second, third, or even fourth wives – called kuma in Turkish – lack legal protection and are especially vulnerable to abuse.
Blair Peterson

West widens contacts with Syria's Kurds | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR - 0 views

  • The main Kurdish political party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), say they are obvious allies for Western states as the only force with a proven track record of combating ISIS there. The Kurds are dismissive of the moderate Syrian opposition that has been backed by the West but outgunned by Islamist groups.
  • Since ISIS overran the Iraqi city of Mosul in June, the PYD has been offered a chance to address both issues in a flurry of contacts with foreign officials, including some from “major powers,” said Khaled Eissa, the PYD’s representative in France. He declined to identify the countries involved, citing diplomatic protocol.
  • Part of the White House’s plan is to enhance support for moderate Sunni Arab groups, who are fighting against both Assad and ISIS.
Blair Peterson

Council for the National Interest | Information on the US connection to Israel-Palestine - 0 views

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    What is this groups bias?
Blair Peterson

BBC News - Ebola crisis: Five ways to break the epidemic - 0 views

  • The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has urged other countries to "deploy their civil defence and military assets, and medical teams, to contain the epidemic".
  • "As soon as their family member shows more severe symptoms, like bleeding, they will seek to bring them in a treatment centre anyway," says Brice de la Vigne, MSF's director of operations.
  • Senegal, where many UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have their regional offices, is expected to become a logistical hub.
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  • "If the CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) hadn't sent 50 experts to Nigeria, they would not have it under control," Dr Maughan says.
  • "We are working with the authorities in Mali to get all the 86 health centres and hospitals we sponsor there ready," says Alexis Smigielski, head of the Dakar-based medical charity Alima.
  • The WHO has also indicated that people who have survived can now provide blood to treat patients who are sick.
Blair Peterson

As Ebola Rages, Poor Planning Thwarts Efforts - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • But one piece is missing: staff. The facility opened recently with a skeleton crew. Now, in an especially hard-hit area where people are dying every day because they cannot get into an Ebola clinic, 60 of the 80 beds at the Kerry Town Ebola clinic are not being used.
  • It is like this with a lot here: good intentions, bad planning. Aid officials in Sierra Leone say poor coordination among aid groups, government mismanagement and some glaring inefficiencies are costing countless lives.
  • Even after patients recover, many treatment centers delay releasing them for more than a week until there are enough other survivors, sometimes dozens, to hold one huge goodbye ceremony for everyone — again, keeping desperately needed beds occupied. “I just wanted to get home and see my wife,” said Suliman Wafta, a recent Ebola survivor treated nearby. “But I had to wait eight extra days.
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  • “Why are the British here? To end Ebola, or party?” read a headline in a local newspaper. It added, “While their American counterparts are working hard to end Ebola in Liberia, our so-called colonial masters are busy living the life of Riley.”
  • Like others, the official kept citing the “Brits’ primacy” in Sierra Leone — a reference to how, several months ago, Western powers divided Ebola responsibilities in West Africa along historical lines, with the United States helping Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in 1822; France helping a former colony, Guinea; and Britain helping its own former colony, Sierra Leone.
  • Many aid officials in Sierra Leone said they crave a more effective command structure. The government runs a national emergency center, but aid officials said that with scores of foreign experts, government delegations and private charities flocking here, coordination was still messy, with many gaps and overlaps. It is extremely difficult, they said, to get even the most basic information, including how many treatment centers exist.
  • There are also growing questions about corruption, with the government announcing recently that it had found 6,000 “ghost medical workers” on its payroll, even as real Ebola burial teams and front-line health officers say they have not been paid in weeks.
Blair Peterson

Peter Theo Curtis, Abducted in 2012, Is Released by Nusra Front - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Yet his surprise liberation by the Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, came less than a week after the decapitation of another American journalist, James Foley, held by a different and even more radical jihadist group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
  • “Our family wants to thank the country of Qatar in a big way,” said Amy Rosen, a cousin. “Every person that our family dealt with in Qatar said that under no circumstances would a ransom be paid — and that this was something the U.S. government had requested, and they had agreed to,” she said. “But at the same time, we don’t pretend to know everything that happened.”
saniyajoshi

U.S. Drone Kills 3 Qaeda Operatives in Yemen, Continuing Policy on Strikes - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • since the resignation of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi
    • saniyajoshi
       
      the president resigned after Houthi rebels stormed his residence and clashed with government forces in recent days 
  • counterterrorism operations there despite the apparent takeover by Houthi fighters.
  • American counterterrorism efforts had not abated.
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  • The turmoil in Yemen comes at a particularly fraught time, just two weeks after A.Q.A.P. claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in Paris
    • saniyajoshi
       
      This terrorist group was part of the Charlie Hedbo attacks
  • the current political standoff could lead to the partition of Yemen
    • saniyajoshi
       
      partition of Yemen could take place due to the current political turmoil 
Blair Peterson

As Ebola Ebbs in Africa, Focus Turns From Death to Life - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • While many have emphasized the enormous assistance hauled into the region by the United States and international organizations, there is strong evidence, especially here in Monrovia, that the biggest change came from the precautions taken by residents themselves.“Fundamentally, this is about the extent to whi
  • Reeling from the explosion of infections in August, volunteer Ebola watchdog groups sprang up in many neighborhoods, typically overseen by local elders and led by educated youths, drawing from a long history of community organizing to survive war, poverty and government neglect.
  • “Heroes emerged in every community,” said Dr. Mosoka Fallah, a Harvard-trained Liberian epidemiologist who often acted as a liaison between neighborhoods and the government. “The volunteer task forces may be the biggest reason behind the drop in October.”
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  • He said that the region’s chiefs enlisted the traditional leaders in the area and put together bylaws that barred residents from hiding their sick, interfering with health workers or carrying out traditional burials that increased the risk of spreading the disease by touching infected corpses.
  • We threatened that anybody who tried to do a traditional burial would be banished from the chiefdom,” he said
smenegh Meneghini

Framing Health and Foreign Policy: lessons for global health diplomacy - 10 views

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    This article talks about how health is becoming part of diplomacy and how it is being discussed as part of security: "Several governments have issued specific foreign policy statements on global health and a new term, global health diplomacy , has been coined to describe the processes by which state and non-state actors engage to position health issues more prominently in foreign policy decision-making". "Security, alongside development, is the most recently encountered frame in the documents we reviewed, with the securitization of health now claimed to be a permanent feature of public health governance in the 21st century. Although "health security" is recent in coinage, its history dates back at least to the 14th century when epidemics threatened to destabilize sovereign power and to compromise the material interest of the elite groups".
Blair Peterson

allAfrica.com: Liberia: Ebola Private Sector Mobilization Group Formed to Fight Ebola - 4 views

  • s such our platform is comprised of the following: 1. To remain in the region and be apart of the nation’s long-term economic and social recovery and development. 2. To ensure employees, families and communities are aware of the disease and are taking the best precautions to avoid infection and stigma. 3. To share experiences and resources, including trained personnel and practices, to assist governments and partners to mobilize quickly to control the spread of the disease. 4. To offer loan or gift-appropriate assets and resources essential to the deployment of an integrated response by donors, militaries, host governments, NGOs and community-based organizations. 5. To make available information about needs of various organizations and first responders, so that they may be connected with corporate giving. 6. To commit to learning from this outbreak and working together to support a strong healthcare system in the affected counties. 7. To raise international awareness and advocate for a larger global coordinated effort to combat Ebola. 8. To advocate for open trade and humanitarian corridors by air, land and sea.
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Blair Peterson

On the UN and war in Gaza - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • President Mahmoud Abbas made no such call to the secretary general, but a group of distinguished scholars and NGOs told him in an open letter that he should either stand for law and justice or resign.
  • Over the last few decades, Israel has disregarded hundreds of resolutions, "censuring", "deploring", "urging against", "recommending against", or "condemning" its attacks, settlements, deportations, occupation, etc. 
  • In the jargon of UN diplomacy, it seems that a resolution that "urges" means "we aren't happy but won't move a finger"; "deplores", means "we don't approve, but you're free to continue with your mischief"; "condemns" means "we're very unhappy but won't do anything about it, nada"; and, "cease" means "if you don't stop we'll remind you if someone reminds us the next time around."
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