Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization
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U.S. to Declare Yemen's Houthis a Terrorist Group, Raising Fears of Fueling a Famine - ... - 0 views
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It is not clear how the terrorist designation will inhibit the Houthi rebels, who have been at war with the Saudi-backed government in Yemen for nearly six years but, some analysts say, pose no direct threat to the United States.
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Mr. Pompeo will announce the designation in his last full week as secretary of state, and more than a month after meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who began a military intervention with Arab allies against the Houthis in 2015.
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The Houthis’ inclusion on the department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations means that fighters within the relatively decentralized movement will be cut off from financial support and other material resources that are routed through U.S. banks or other American institutions.
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But the Houthis’ main patron is Iran, which continues to send support despite being hobbled by severe U.S. economic sanctions
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Experts said it would chill humanitarian efforts to donate food and medicine to Houthi-controlled areas in northern and western Yemen
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The United Nations estimates that about 80 percent of Yemenis depend on food assistance, and nearly half of all children suffer stunted growth because of malnutrition.
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“I urge all those with influence to act urgently on these issues to stave off catastrophe, and I also request that everyone avoids taking any action that could make the already dire situation even worse,” Mr. Guterres said then.
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In October, the rebels released two American hostages and the remains of a third in a prisoner swap that also allowed about 240 Houthis to return to Yemen from Oman.
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Beyond the looming famine, the terrorist designation could also seal the fate of an immense rusting oil tanker moored off Yemen’s western coast.
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“If we do not want to cause Yemen to lose an entire generation,” Mr. Ralby said, “we need to back off this designation.”
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Biden Team Unveils New Asylum System To Address Migrant Backlog : NPR - 0 views
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The Biden administration will begin phasing in a new asylum process on Feb. 19 for the backlog of people seeking asylum on the southern U.S. border, but Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NPR that migrants must avoid traveling to the U.S. border while the new system gets up and running.
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"It's a very, very important cautionary note that they should not travel to the border. That will only increase the pressure on the humanitarian effort to provide for them carefully and safely,"
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The Department of Homeland Security plans to start allowing in a trickle of asylum-seekers — about 300 people per day — from among an estimated 25,000 people with "active cases" in the now-defunct Migrant Protection Protocols program.
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Former President Donald Trump called the program "Remain in Mexico" because it forced migrants from Central American countries to await asylum hearings outside the United States. Biden has called that policy "inhumane," and ending the program was one of Biden's first actions when he took office, part of a sweeping rollback of Trump's measures aimed at curbing immigration.
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Migrants who believe they are eligible will first register with NGOs, nongovernmental organizations that will identify those who are most vulnerable and stuck in limbo the longest. The Department of Homeland Security is building "electronic portals" for migrants to be able to register and check their status.
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"I cannot overstate the fact that the prior administration completely dismantled the program, and it takes time to rebuild it in a way that addresses the humanitarian needs of the individuals who seek to access it," he told NPR.
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"We'll be doing a huge amount of media. We'll be working with our international organization partners who have excellent social media networks that reach migrant communities to make sure that people understand who will be eligible for this program and who will not," a senior U.S. official told reporters.
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After initial screening by the NGOs — which are not yet being revealed — migrants will be given an appointment to go through a port of entry. They will first be tested for the coronavirus and will be equipped with masks.
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The asylum-seekers will be enrolled in "alternative detention programs" after they cross the border to a final destination inside the country, where their asylum cases will eventually be heard, officials told reporters. No court proceedings will occur at the border.
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Ethiopian Refugees From Tigray Flee To Sudan : NPR - 0 views
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The heat is unrelenting in the middle of a December day in eastern Sudan. It's hard to find any shade in this arid landscape. It's mostly dust and boulders — and, for now at least, it is the temporary home of tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees who have crossed the border to flee the fighting in their country.
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Last month, the Ethiopian government launched a military offensive against a rebellious regional government. The ensuing conflict has killed hundreds, and almost 50,000 Ethiopians have crossed the country's northwestern border into Sudan. It's a refugee crisis that is straining the humanitarian infrastructure in the country. The United Nations refugee agency has appealed for $150 million to help cope with the situation.
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They say members of Fano, a youth militia loyal to the government, rampaged through Mai-Kadra killing ethnic Tigrayans. The government has repeatedly disputed that narrative, saying it was a youth militia affiliated with the Tigrayan rebels who killed ethnic Amharas, Ethiopia's second-biggest ethnic group.
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She says she now feels safe in Sudan but worries about her future and about the bleak living conditions at the camps. Humanitarian workers are struggling to keep up with the flow of refugees and to build up an infrastructure to accommodate them.
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In Ethiopia, the situation appears more severe. The United Nations has said that refugees in the Tigray Region have received no aid since conflict started. The more than 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, who have fled war and repression in the past two decades, the U.N. says, have run out of food rations. The U.N. has received reports that refugees are leaving camps because of violence.
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The war is a power struggle between Ethiopia's new government and its old one; it's about what the Ethiopian political system will look like in the future. But in interviews with refugees, the war is about loss. Everyone, no matter which side they're on, is mourning. Some have lost loved ones; many others have lost homes. And every inch of the refugee camps in Sudan has become about grasping at some semblance of what they had before the war.
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Opinion | The U.S. Must Work With the Taliban in Afghanistan - The New York Times - 0 views
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When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan last summer, it was left with a critical choice: allow the collapse of a state that had mostly been kept afloat by foreign aid or work with the Taliban, its former foes who were in power, to prevent that outcome.
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The United States should swallow the bitter pill of working with the Taliban-led government in order to prevent a failed state in Afghanistan. Kneecapping the government through sanctions and frozen aid won’t change the fact that the Taliban are now in charge, but it will ensure that ordinary public services collapse, the economy decays and Afghans’ livelihoods shrink even further.
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Their cash-based economy is starved of currency, hunger and malnutrition are growing, civil servants are largely unpaid, and essential services are in tatters.
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That playbook is how Washington typically tries to punish objectionable regimes. But the result has been catastrophic for civilians.
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Isolation was fast and easy to do: It cost no money or political capital and satisfied the imperative of expressing disapproval.
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Funding for emergency aid delivered by the United Nations and humanitarian organizations has grown, with Washington providing the largest share, nearly $474 million in 2021. The U.S. government also has gradually broadened humanitarian carve-outs from its sanctions and has taken the lead in getting the Security Council to issue exemptions from U.N. sanctions, making it easier for those delivering aid to carry out their work without legal risk.
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The United States should draw a distinction between the Taliban as former insurgents and the state they now control.
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It will help curb growing migration from the country and rising illicit narcotics production by Afghans desperate for income. It could also produce at least limited opportunity for getting the Taliban to cooperate with the United States to suppress terrorist threats from the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan and other groups.
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And appearing to turn a blind eye to the Taliban’s past and current human rights violations is deeply unappealing.
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But I’ve seen over the past two decades how Western powers have consistently overestimated their ability to get Afghan authorities — whoever they are — to acquiesce to their demands. Governments that were utterly dependent on U.S. security and financial support brushed off pressure to adopt Washington’s preferred peacemaking, war-fighting and anti-corruption strategies.
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The Taliban are never going to have a policy on women’s rights that accords with Western values. They show no signs of embracing even limited forms of democratic governance.
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But the alternative is worse, foremost for the Afghans who have no choice but to live under Taliban rule and who need livelihoods.
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E-Notes: Nightmares of an I.R. Professor - FPRI - 0 views
www.fpri.org/...1209.mcdougall.nightmares.html
US history foreign policy neoconservatism crusade intervention
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the British, during their late Victorian heyday, believed theirs was the exceptional Land of Hope and Glory, a vanguard of progress and model for all nations.[3] Can it be—O scary thought—that the same faith in Special Providence that inspires energy, ingenuity, resilience, and civic virtue in a nation, may also tempt a people into complacency, arrogance, self-indulgence, and civic vice?
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what Americans believe about their past is always a powerful influence on their present behavior and future prospects. No wonder we have “culture wars” in which the representation of history is a principal stake.
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my study of European international relations naturally inclined me to think about foreign policy in terms of Realpolitik, balance of power, geography, contingency, tragedy, irony, folly, unintended consequences, and systemic interaction—all of which are foreign if not repugnant to Americans.
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Times were certainly very good in the decade after the 1991 Soviet collapse ended the fifty year emergency that began with Pearl Harbor. So if one accepts my definition of a conservative as “someone who knows things could be worse than they are-period,” then conservatism was never more apt
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the “third age” neoconservatives ensconced at The Weekly Standard, Commentary, and various think tanks thought Promised Land, Crusader State decidedly inconvenient. They wanted Americans to believe that the United States has always possessed the mission and duty to redeem the whole world by exertion as well as example, and that any American who shirks from that betrays the Founders themselves.[13] They were loudly decrying cuts in defense spending as unilateral disarmament, likening U.S. policies to Britain’s lethargy in the 1930s, and warning of new existential threats on the horizon.
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what national assets must the United States husband, augment if possible, and take care not to squander? My list was as follows: (1) a strong economy susceptible only to mild recession; (2) robust armed forces boasting technical superiority and high morale designed for winning wars; (3) presidential leadership that is prudent, patriotic, and persuasive; (4) a bipartisan, internationalist consensus in Congress; (5) sturdy regional alliances; (6) engagement to promote balance of power in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East; (7) strong Pan-American ties to secure of our southern border.
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t the shock of the 9/11 attacks and the imperative duty to prevent their repetition caused the Bush administration to launch two wars for regime change that eventuated in costly, bloody occupations belatedly devoted to democratizing the whole Middle East. Thus did the United States squander in only five years all seven of the precious assets listed in my 1999 speech.
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When the other shoe dropped—not another Al Qaeda attack but the 2008 sub-prime mortgage collapse—Americans wrestled anew with an inconvenient truth. Foreign enemies cannot harm the United States more than Americans harm themselves, over and over again, through strategic malpractice and financial malfeasance.
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Unfortunately, in an era of interdependent globalization vexed by failed states, rogue regimes, ethnic cleansing, sectarian violence, famines, epidemics, transnational terrorism, and what William S. Lind dubbed asymmetrical “Fourth Generation Warfare,” the answer to questions about humanitarian or strategic interventions abroad can’t be “just say no!” For however often Americans rediscover how institutionally, culturally, and temperamentally ill-equipped they are to do nation-building, the United States will likely remain what I (and now Robert Merry) dubbed a Crusader State.
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the urgent tasks for civilian and military planners are those of the penitent sinner called to confess, repent, and amend his ways. The tasks include refining procedures to coordinate planning for national security so that bureaucratic and interest-group rivalries do not produce “worst of both worlds” outcomes.[22] They include interpreting past counter-insurgencies and postwar occupations in light of their historical particularities lest facile overemphasis on their social scientific commonalities yield “one size fits all” field manuals
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they include persuading politicians to cease playing the demagogue on national security and citizens to cease imagining every intervention a “crusade” or a “quagmire”
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North Korea Puts Bright Face on China Visit, Despite Tensions - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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North Korea gave a positive spin Saturday to the visit of its special envoy to China but made no mention of China’s push for the North to resume negotiations
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Kim Jong-un, whose belligerent behavior has annoyed China, sent a personal letter to Mr. Xi that referred to the deep friendship between the two allies that “cannot be exchanged for anything.”
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News Today - The Atlantic - 0 views
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Syrian rebels group, including Islamists formerly linked to al-Qaeda, launched a military offensive to break the government’s siege of Aleppo, the last major rebel-held city in Syria where 275,000 people have been trapped for months.
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Russian and Syrian airstrikes have pounded the rebel-held eastern part of the divided city. Civilian targets, humanitarian convoys, and hospitals have been struck. The government controls the western portion of Aleppo
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rebels fired missiles at al-Nayrab, in the east of the city, killing 15 people and wounding 100 others
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Eastern Aleppo is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, but taking it won’t be easy. Assad is backed not only by the Russian military—airstrikes and a soon-to-arrive naval fleet in the Mediterranean—but also fighters from Iran, and Hezbollah, the Shia militia from neighboring Lebanon
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Mosul Fight Unleashes New Horrors on Civilians - The New York Times - 0 views
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Islamic State has moved hundreds of civilians from villages around the city to use as human shields,
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A sulfur plant set on fire by the Islamic State has sent dozens of people for treatment for respiratory problems, and several journalists have been hurt, and two killed, covering the fighting.
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Although the government’s military operation itself is largely meeting its goals in progressing toward the city, the turmoil surrounding it is a sign of just how difficult it would be to secure a lasting peace across Iraq’s many divisions even after a victory.
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Mr. Colville said that in one case, several women and children, including a 4-year-old, who were being held as human shields by Islamic State fighters were suddenly gunned down by the militants, possibly because they were lagging behind the group.
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“ISIS has lost hundreds of its members from airstrikes when they withdraw, so now they are forcibly displacing the residents of villages they are leaving and using them as human shields,”
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So far, about 9,000 people have fled the fighting as Kurdish and Iraqi government forces have moved to secure villages around the city, according to the United Nations.
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as the United Nations has worked to protect civilians, it has at times been undermined by the Iraqi security forces.
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On the military front, the Islamic State has managed to launch two attacks on cities far from Mosul, diverting the attention of Iraqi security forces and the warplanes of the American-led coalition.
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Kurdish officials in Kirkuk responded by forcing out hundreds of Arab families who had sought safety there, according to United Nations officials and local residents, as they feared that terrorists had sneaked into the city posing as displaced civilians.
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Local officials blamed the American-led coalition, but United States military officials have said the episode was not the result of a coalition airstrike.
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Some have suggested that an artillery shell hit the mosque, but Human Rights Watch said the evidence it had seen “is consistent with an airstrike.” The Iraqi forces are also conducting airstrikes, and Human Rights called for a thorough investigation.
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Citing safety concerns, the Iraqi government said recently that it would begin restricting journalists’ access to the front lines
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Europe's Aid Plan For Syrian Refugees: A Million Debit Cards : Parallels : NPR - 0 views
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The European Union is desperate to keep Syrian refugees from bolting from Turkey for Europe. But the prospects for Syrians in Turkey have been slim. Now the EU is launching its biggest aid program yet – more than $375 million aimed at a million of the neediest Syrians in Turkey.
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a debit card that can be used to buy whatever food, medicine or clothing a family needs, or to get cash.
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There have been cash-based aid programs before, but not on this scale. Jonny Hogg, spokesmen for the World Food Program, says this is the biggest humanitarian relief contract ever signed by the EU.
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Syrians in Turkey are supposed to stay where they're registered. They can rent property if they can afford it, work if they can find a job, and can be eligible for health care and education. But as a practical matter, the demand usually outstrips the supply. Turkey's Ambassador to the U.K. recently wrote that there are around 853,000 school-aged children, 310,000 of which are eligible to receive education.
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The Canadian businessman who sponsored 200 refugees - BBC News - 0 views
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One Canadian businessman decided he could do more for desperate Syrians fleeing their war-torn country. So he bankrolled an Ontario town's resettlement of over 200 refugees.
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Canada allows private citizens, along with authorised sponsorship groups, to directly sponsor refugees by providing newcomers with basic material needs like food, clothing, housing, and support integrating into Canadian society. But Estill was looking to make a big impact, quickly.
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And he says his parents, who sponsored two Ugandan refugees when he was a child, instilled humanitarian values in him.
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Iraqi forces raise flag at Mosul University in push against ISIS | Fox News - 0 views
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Published January 14, 2017 FoxNews.com Facebook0 Twitter0 Email Print A member of Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) stands in a military vehicle at the University of Mosul during a battle with Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq, January 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad - RTSVHSV Iraqi special forces raised the Iraqi flag above the buildings at the Mosul University complex on Friday as they continued the battle for control of the city against Islamic State militants.
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"We congratulate the Iraqi Security Forces on their continued progress in Eastern Mosul,” U.S. army Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition said in a statement. “Work still needs to be done but ISIL's days in Mosul are quickly coming to an end.
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The U.S.-led coalition supporting the Iraqi forces offensive on Mosul told The Associated Press on Friday that the Islamic State group "warped the purpose of a beloved institution of higher learning when they used the university for military purposes."
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The extremist group, which controls most of Deir el-Zour province, has kept the provincial capital under siege since 2014. Government forces have withstood the encirclement thanks to air-dropped humanitarian assistance and weapons and ammunition flown into the airport. Remaining residents have reported malnourishment and starvation amid severe shortages of food, water and fuel. The Islamic State group, which in 2014 seized large parts of Iraq and Syria and established a so-called Islamic caliphate straddling both sides of the border, is under intense pressure in both countries where it has lost significant territory in recent months.
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Trump Criticizes NATO and Hopes for 'Good Deals' With Russia - The New York Times - 0 views
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Mr. Trump has made similar comments before. But the fact that he made them in a joint interview with two European publications — The Times of London and Bild, a German newspaper — and did so days before assuming the presidency alarmed European diplomats.
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Mr. Trump was critical of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, including airstrikes in Aleppo that American officials say have hit hospitals and killed civilians, saying it had led to a “terrible humanitarian situation.”
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“I have had discussions with him on this issue,” General Mattis said. “He has shown himself open, even to the point of asking more questions, going deeper into the issue.”
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The diplomats said they had heard him sound off during the campaign. But with the inauguration less than a week away, there is a growing realization in European capitals that Mr. Trump’s acerbic criticism of NATO and the European Union was not just an attempt to win votes.
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Iran-Led Push to Retake Falluja From ISIS Worries U.S. - The New York Times - 0 views
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American commandos are on the front lines in Syria in a new push toward the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa, but in Iraq it is an entirely different story: Iran, not the United States, has become the face of an operation to retake the jihadist stronghold of Falluja from the militant group.
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On the outskirts of Falluja, tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, police officers and Shiite militiamen backed by Iran are preparing for an assault on the Sunni city, raising fears of a sectarian blood bath
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But the United States has long believed that Iran’s role, which relies on militias accused of sectarian abuses, can make matters worse by angering Sunnis and making them more sympathetic to the militants.
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The battle over Falluja has evolved into yet another example of how United States and Iranian interests seemingly converge and clash at the same time in Iraq. Both want to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
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Militiamen have plastered artillery shells with the name of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric close to Iran whose execution this year by Saudi Arabia, a Sunni power, deepened the region’s sectarian divide, before firing them at Falluja.
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But in Iraq, where the United States backs the central government, and trains and advises the Iraqi Army, it has been limited by the role of Iran, the most powerful foreign power inside the country.
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In an extraordinary statement on Wednesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the world’s pre-eminent Shiite religious leader, who lives in Najaf in southern Iraq and is said to be concerned by Iran’s growing role in Iraq, urged security forces and militia to restrain themselves and abide by “the standard behaviors of jihad.”
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The United States has thousands of military personnel in Iraq and has trained Iraqi security forces for nearly two years, yet is largely on the sidelines in the battle to retake Falluja. It says its air and artillery strikes have killed dozens of Islamic State fighters, including the group’s Falluja commander.
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Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has stressed that civilians must be protected in the operation and ordered that humanitarian corridors be opened to allow civilians to leave the city safely, disavowed the militia leader’s comments.
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She said that some residents had been killed for refusing to fight for the jihadists, and that those inside were surviving on old stacks of rice, a few dates and water from unsafe sources such as drainage ditches.
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To allay fears that the battle for Falluja will heighten sectarian tensions, Iraqi officials, including Mr. Abadi, and militia leaders have said they will adhere to a battle plan that calls for the militias not to participate in the assault on the city.
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The American military role in Iraq has been limited mostly to airstrikes and the training of the army. But, as in northern Syria, there are also Special Forces soldiers in Iraq, carrying out raids on Islamic State targets.
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Iraq’s elite counterterror forces are preparing to lead the assault on Falluja; they have long worked closely with the United States and are considered among the few forces loyal to the country and not to a sect.
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A big question going into the battle is whether the Islamic State fighters will dig in and fight or, as they have in some other battles, throw away their weapons and try to melt into the civilian population.
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For the United States, there is also the matter of history: Led by the Marines, its forces fought two bloody battles for Falluja in 2004. Mindful of this past, American officials would have preferred that the Iraqis left Falluja alone for now and focused on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul in the north.
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The American military’s assault on Falluja in April of 2004 was in retaliation for an episode that became an early symbol of a war spiraling out of control, the image of it as indelible as it was gruesome: the bodies of four Blackwater contractors dangling from the ironwork of a bridge.
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Falluja offensive: Iraqi troops retake key town of Karma from ISIS - CNN.com - 0 views
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Iraqi security forces and supporting militias have retaken the key town of Karma from ISIS, the government's first significant victory
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The United Nations said it fears an estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in Falluja ahead of the government advance are at extreme risk.
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Iraqi government troops, backed by Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Units and an air campaign by the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, launched an offensive Monday to retake Falluja, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.
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The recapture of Karma, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Falluja, brings most of the territory east of Falluja under government control.
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But activists said ISIS is preventing residents from leaving, and U.N. officials have said some have died trying to escape.
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About 800 people had been able to flee to safety since Sunday, with most hailing from outlying areas, the U.N. statement said.
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Those who made it out described dire humanitarian conditions in Falluja, which has had supply routes cut off since government forces retook nearby Ramadi in December.
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Congress Is Running Out of Time to Save Puerto Rico - The Atlantic - 0 views
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On Sunday, Puerto Rico will likely default again on some of its debts, which now total over $70 billion.
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It is an entity that is often almost completely at the whim of Congress, the most dysfunctional body in national politics today.
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. Its economy has not grown in over a decade, and there is a $28 billion gap in funding over the next five years alone.
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Public hospitals and health-care facilities may close, exacerbating an ongoing crisis that already sees Puerto Rican patients receiving far worse health care than their mainland counterparts.
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Puerto Rico has attempted to solve its debt issues by granting itself bankruptcy powers under rules that grant service providers in the states the ability to seek relief, but that decision remains under Supreme Court review and has been opposed in no uncertain terms by the federal government.
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The plan also exempts Puerto Rican workers under 25 years old from the labor protections of a federally-mandated minimum wage and overtime regulation, with the goal of making Puerto Rico’s job market more competitive in comparison to its neighbors.
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Representatives of those who hold the territory’s general obligation bonds oppose the bill as well, because it would allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debts and delay payment, as well as limit the ability of bondholders to sue if it defaults.
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In 1984 Congress specifically carved Puerto Rico out from Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protections that it once had, offering no reason for singling out the territory.
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Also in 1996, Congress passed legislation to phase out Section 936 of the federal tax code, a law that exempted U.S. industries from taxes on income in Puerto Rico. With no replacement plan to promote development or growth, Puerto Rico’s economy suffered.
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The Medicaid underpayment deficit alone accounts for almost one-fifth of the current total deficit in the territory. A legislative medical-funding scheme could both help right the financial ship in Puerto Rico and help its crippled health-care system face the siege of Zika.
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Granted, the government of Puerto Rico is not blameless in this saga. Its public-services monopolies are extraordinarily inefficient; the territorial government has not been good with spending, budgeting, or long-term fiscal planning; and the two major parties––for statehood and the status quo––have supported some congressional reforms with the goal of forcing the other side’s hand, instead of promoting good governance.
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Congress’s dysfunctions might run so deep that they keep it from even addressing a humanitarian crisis in the country, a total failure of the body’s special duty towards Puerto Rico. Congress’s current plan might provide short-term relief, but it is a bit of a Hobson’s choice.
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Divided Aleppo Plunges Back Into War as Hospital Is Destroyed - The New York Times - 0 views
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Syria’s divided city of Aleppo plunged back into the kind of all-out war not seen in months on Thursday
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The escalation also threatened to derail renewed attempts at peace talks in Geneva by the United Nations
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There was no indication that the Syrian government forces of President Bashar al-Assad and their Russian allies were any closer to retaking the entire city.
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Mr. Anees said the rebels appeared to have started using more powerful munitions since the cease-fire crumbled in the city over a week ago.
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The hospital was the main referral center for pediatrics, with eight doctors, 28 nurses, an emergency room, intensive care unit and operating room, all now destroyed.
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In another area, a small boy was captured on video crying over the body of his brother, calling him “the love of my father.
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Once-wealthy Syrian doctor works in exile to treat refugees, dreams of healing his coun... - 0 views
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REYHANLI, Turkey — When the wounded arrived at the Red Crescent hospital in Idlib at the start of the Syrian uprising — opponents of President Bashar al-Assad who had been shot or beaten by government troops — military police ordered the doctors to just let them die.
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“This I could not do,” said Martini, a successful surgeon from an affluent family. “I treat all people, of any origin. They are human, and I am a doctor.”
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“They beat me. They did terrifying things,” he said quietly in a recent interview. “I don’t want to remember that day.”
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Martini is, in some ways, typical: mostly apolitical but firmly opposed to Assad’s regime and to the Islamist groups that are vying with other armed opposition groups for control of rebel-held areas.
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Now, he lives alone in makeshift quarters in the offices of the aid organization he helped found in this Turkish border town. He heads the group’s relief operations in northern Syria and the Turkish border regions, overseeing the delivery of medical care to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
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Martini is deeply skeptical of peace talks scheduled for this month in Geneva, which are supposed to facilitate negotiations between Assad’s government and rebel groups.
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“We must keep working. Whether the time is long or short, this regime will fall,” Martini said. “Then we must rebuild our country.”
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. Then he crossed the border into Jordan, which aid agencies say shelters more than 563,000 refugees.
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When he left Syria, Martini said, he lost everything. The government seized all nine of his houses, along with his bank accounts, a clinical laboratory and 2,000 olive trees. The loss of the olive grove seems to have stung particularly; Idlib is known for its production of the bitter fruit.
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In Jordan, the doctor briefly treated patients in the Zaatari refugee camp. Then he fled the difficult conditions to join his wife and youngest child in the United Arab Emirates. His older children escaped Syria, too, and are studying medicine in the United States.
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At first, the effort paid for treatment for Syrians in Turkish hospitals. Operations were soon expanded to include the building of a 144-bed medical unit in the city of Antakya, near the Syrian border. Then hostility from Antakya’s Alawites — many of whom support Assad, who is also Alawite — prompted Orient to move the facility to Reyhanli. Alawites are members of a Shiite-affiliated sect.
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Orient’s medical ventures expanded into rebel-held areas of Syria, where it now runs 12 hospitals and several rehabilitation centers and employs more than 400 doctors. Facilities in Turkey include a day clinic, a school for displaced Syrians and a sewing workshop that trains and provides work for many Syrian women.
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It is an unusual arrangement for an organization of Orient Humanitarian Relief’s size — staff members said Orient programs and facilities helped nearly 400,000 people last year. But the setup offers a strategic advantage. A member of an aid organization working with Orient said it is able to move faster than any of its peers, making quick decisions unhampered by complicated bureaucracies and approval processes.
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The many doctors and surgeons in the Martini clan are scattered across Europe and the United States. One uncle founded Martini Hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo, where fighting between rebels and government forces has been sustained and brutal. Ammar Martini worked at that hospital, now heavily damaged, for 10 years.
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How Syria talks were derailed before they started - CNN.com - 0 views
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With progress toward a transitional government highly unlikely, the conference will now focus as much on the humanitarian crisis as it will on discussions about Syria's political future.
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Under U.S. Pressure, U.N. Withdraws Iran's Invitation to Syria Talks - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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the United Nations on Monday withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier.
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Under intense American pressure, the United Nations on Monday withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier.
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The United States had said it was surprised by the invitation because Iran had not agreed to conditions for the talks, to be held on Wednesday in Montreux, Switzerland.
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“Given that it has chosen to remain outside that basic understanding, he has decided that the one-day Montreux gathering will proceed without Iran’s participation,” Mr. Ban’s spokesman said in the statement.
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must publicly endorse the mandate of the conference, which is outlined in a communiqué from a 2012 meeting in Geneva. That mandate says that the conference’s purpose is to negotiate the establishment of a transitional administration that would govern Syria by the “mutual consent” of Mr. Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition.
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all parties can now return to focus on the task at hand, which is bringing an end to the suffering of the Syrian people and beginning a process toward a long overdue political transition.”
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“Negotiations involve sitting at the table not just with those who you like, but with those whose participation the solution depends on,”
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The United States and several of its allies have opposed Iran’s presence at the conference in part because Iran has been a strong supporter of the Assad government, sending it arms and paramilitary fighters from its Quds force.
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“the war against terrorism” in his country. He described the idea of sharing power as “totally unrealistic,” and said there was a “significant” likelihood that he would seek a new term as president in June.
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“The Syrian coalition announces that they will withdraw their attendance in Geneva II unless Ban Ki-moon retracts Iran’s invitation,” a Twitter message said, quoting Louay Safi, a coalition spokesman.
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the negotiations were not expected to yield major results, except perhaps to open up certain parts of Syria to the delivery of humanitarian aid