Section: Newsweek (USA)
Australian Police Raids Follow Islamic State-Linked Beheading Plot, Says PM
Militants connected with radical group Islamic State were planning to behead a member of the public in Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Thursday, after hundreds of police raided homes in a sweeping counter-terrorism operation. Abbott said there was a “serious risk from a terrorist attack” days after Australia raised its...
U.N.’s Climate Change Push Gains DiCaprio, but Loses India, China and Russia
Global turmoil and violence in Iraq and Syria will join climate change as key topics at the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which opened Tuesday. Calling it “the defining issue of our time,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said climate change will join the “horrendous violence in Iraq and Syria” carried out by Islamic...
It’s Time for the Kurds to Set Up Their Own Nation
Before welcoming the emerging state of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, I confess to having opposed its independence in the past. In 1991, after the Kuwait War had ended and as Saddam Hussein attacked Iraq’s 6 million Kurds, I made three arguments against American intervention on their behalf, arguments still commonly heard today: First, Kurdish...
Russia Promises Swift Retaliation to U.S. Sanctions
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Friday it would respond quickly with retaliatory measures to the latest round of U.S. sanctions that it criticized as another “hostile step”, pledging to support affected companies with state funds. The European Union and the United States have tightened economic penalties on Moscow, accusing it...
Putin Looks to Asia as EU Tightens Sanctions
DUSHANBE (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin called on Friday for new efforts to strengthen cooperation with China and ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia after the European Union tightened sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis. In comments at a meeting in Tajikistan, he made no direct reference to the sanctions but has been trying...
Russia Tests ICBM; Putin Complains About NATO Rhetoric
MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia must maintain its nuclear deterrence to counter what he called growing security threats, after Moscow test-launched an intercontinental nuclear missile. With ties between Moscow and the West frayed by the crisis in Ukraine, Putin also took greater control of a commission...
Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing ‘ISIS-Style’ War Crimes
Groups of right-wing Ukrainian nationalists are committing war crimes in the rebel-held territories of Eastern Ukraine, according to a report from Amnesty International, as evidence emerged in local media of the volunteer militias beheading their victims. Armed volunteers who refer to themselves as the Aidar battalion “have been involved in...
Exclusive: Russian Soldiers Reveal the Truth Behind Putin’s Secret War
Lyudmila Malinina’s voice trembled as she described the secret funeral she witnessed on a recent night in her small town of Sudislavsky in the Kostroma region of central Russia. At about 8pm, a truck parked at the cemetery a few yards away from her wooden house. The truck’s headlights stayed on to illuminate the ground for several men...
Ceasefire or No, Death Toll Keeps Rising in Ukraine
KIEV/MARIUPOL Ukraine (Reuters) – Five Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in the past four days, the military said on Tuesday, underscoring the strains in a ceasefire between government forces and pro-Russian separatists that officials insist is still broadly holding. The ceasefire, agreed on Friday, is part of a peace plan meant to end...
Russia Denies Military Planes Approached Canadian Warship
A Russian Defense Ministry official dismissed on Tuesday a complaint by Ottawa that Russian military aircraft had acted provocatively by flying near a Canadian warship sailing in the Black Sea. Canadian Defense Minister Rob Nicholson said on Monday that Russian aircraft had on Sunday circled the frigate Toronto as it took part in a military...
