Section: Middle East Monitor (Kuwait)
Putin in bigger threat than Daesh, warns US senator
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a bigger threat to the world security than Daesh, the US senator, John McCain, has warned. Speaking in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC News), on the back of his official tour of Australia, McCain said that Putin was “the premier and most important threat, more so than Isis...
Israel forces asylum seekers to deposit 20% of pay as incentive to leave
Refugees, activists and employers have condemned the Israeli government for requiring asylum seekers to deposit 20 per cent of their salaries with the authorities to be repaid only when they leave the country, Haaretz has reported. According to Kav L’Oved from the Workers Hotline, the new law which came into effect on 1 May also requires...
Israel quits Eurovision Song Contest live on air
Israel has announced they’re quitting the Eurovision Song Contest after 44 years. A representative for the nation made the shock announcement live on air as he handed out their scores on Saturday night. He said it was because the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is shutting down. As the hosts in Kiev, Ukraine went live to Israel to find...
5 detained Russian sailors released by Libya
The majority of the Russian sailors seized from their cargo ship off the Libyan city of Zawia last month have been released, Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov confirmed this week. Bogdanov was in Tripoli on Tuesday for a series of meetings with Presidency Council (PC) head Fayez Al-Sarraj. He confirmed that five of the seven...
Trump, Russia and the Syrian crisis
Ten days ago, US warships fired dozens of missiles at a Syrian air base from where it is suspected fighter aircraft belonging to the Assad regime took off to launch a chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhon in the province of Idlib; dozens of the small town’s residents were killed. There has since been considerable debate about the reasons...
Russian Jews leave Israel
Many of the Russian-Jews, who arrived to the Jewish State in the early 1990s, left Israel in recent years, heading back to their home country, or seeking new pastures, Israel’s Haaretz reported yesterday. Liza Rozovsky, a Russian-Jewish who came to Israel as part of the main migration wave, has conducted several interviews with Russians in...
Half of the 20,000 foreign fighters in Syria are from the CIS, claims Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that about 9,000 of the 20,000 foreign fighters in Syria are from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Anadolu news agency has reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia on March 28, 2017. ( Sefa Karacan/ Anadolu Agency ) “Nearly half of the approximately 20,000 foreign...
US must walk dangerous line to manage twin Syria, North Korea crises
If there was ever any doubt that President Donald Trump’s strike against Syria was also intended to send a message to Pyongyang, the deployment this weekend of a US carrier strike group towards the Korean Peninsula should have cleared it up. There is now a strange symmetry to the two principal foreign policy crises the Trump administration...
G7 foreign ministers seek US clarity over Syria
Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven major industrialised nations meet on Monday for an annual gathering, with Europe and Japan seeking clarity from the United States on an array of issues, especially Syria. The two-day summit in Tuscany comes as the United States moves a Navy strike group near the Korean peninsular amid concerns over North...
To curb political violence in its name, Islam needs to be independent of political power, not reformed even further
When it comes to finding a solution to the current political violence in the name of Islam, the most common prognosis is that Islam needs reform to make it politically civil and compatible with liberal political principles. Such an assessment is puzzling, because reforms of Islam under the influence of the liberal West actually happened almost...
