Ecuador, the South American nation considering an asylum request from fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, renounced its U.S. trade benefits today, saying they were being used as “blackmail.” “Ecuador doesn’t accept pressure or threats from anyone and doesn’t barter its principles and sovereignty or submit to mercantile interests,” President Rafael Correa said today in [...]
The post Ecuador Criticizes Washington’s Efforts On Snowden appeared first on Eurasia Review.
During almost every media interview on the Edward Snowden leak story, the person being interviewed (including me) is almost always asked whether Snowden should be considered a whistleblowing hero or a dishonorable traitor to the nation. The question probably arises from American society’s focus on the individual, leading to a celebrity-loving culture, and the black [...]
The post Edward Snowden: Hero Or Traitor? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Cheryl Pellerin Hard work by the administration, the services and the leadership at U.S. Cyber Command is putting in place elements crucial to defending U.S. and allied interests in cyberspace, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy said in a recent interview. Eric Rosenbach cited Defense Department progress in creating a concept [...]
The post US Defense Dept. Readies Elements Crucial To Cyber Operations appeared first on Eurasia Review.
The distance between Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Istanbul’s Taksim Square is impossibly long. There can be no roadmap sufficient enough to use the popular experience of the first in order to explicate the circumstances that lead to the other. Many have tried to insist on the similarities between the two since it is fashionable these [...]
The post From Tahrir To Taksim: West Reserves Right To Interfere – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.
In an electoral system, run by and for a corporate oligarchy, deception and demagoguery are essential elements – entertaining the people while working for the wealthy. Every US President has engaged, in one fashion or another, in ‘play acting’ to secure popular approval, neutralize hostility and distract voters from the reactionary substance of their foreign [...]
The post Presidential Rule By Deception: Obama, The Master Con-Man – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Riad Kahwaji and Dr. Theodore Karasik Only actions can differentiate between a “moderate” and a “conservative” or a “hardline” politician. This is how an Arabian Gulf official reacted to all the discussions by world leaders and analysts commenting on the sweeping victory of Hassan Rohani in the recent Iranian presidential elections. Most international media [...]
The post Rohani’s Victory: Realistic Expectations From A Witty “Moderate” Leader – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Frederick B. Mills and Laura Powell Having already applied to Ecuador for asylum, and reportedly at a transit point in Russia, Edward Snowden may be inching his way towards Latin America, hoping to be granted asylum there as Washington continues its stumbling diplomatic offensive to apprehend the intelligence whistleblower. Whatever Snowden’s motivations, the leaking [...]
The post The Hemispheric Dimension Of Asylum For Edward Snowden – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Gary C. Gambill The growing infusion of Iranian-backed Lebanese and Iraqi Shiite fighters into the Syrian civil war is causing some veteran pundits to panic. Vali Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, warns that “Iran is beating the U.S. in Syria.” Former Bush administration deputy national security [...]
The post Syria Is Iran’s Stalingrad – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Conn Hallinan The Obama administration’s decision to directly supply weapons to the Syrian opposition may end up torpedoing the possibility of a political settlement. It will almost certainly accelerate the chaos spreading from the almost three-year old civil war. It will also align Washington with one of the most undemocratic alliances on the planet, [...]
The post Syria And The Monarchs: A Perfect Storm – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Rachel Greszler This year’s Social Security trustees report was released with little fanfare, as the projected date of Social Security’s financial insolvency held steady at 2033.[1] Many analysts and lawmakers have pointed to 20 years of alleged solvency as an excuse to delay meaningful Social Security reform. However, if history is any guide to [...]
The post History Suggests US Social Security Insolvency Is Coming Sooner Than Projected – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Wilson John The apparent role of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) in the terrorist attack in Srinagar, which killed eight Indian soldiers on June 24, has raised several questions which may sour the tone and tenor of New Delhi’s renewed engagement with Islamabad. The expectations of a better bilateral relationship raised in the wake of the return [...]
The post Kashmir Attack: Ominous Signs – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Sandra Fernandes “(…) Europe is indeed a peninsula stuck on the end of Russia. However, given the globalized and globalizing context of contemporary security, Russia is a European power and together we are all ever more a peninsula stuck on the end of Asia. (…) Russia is missing a fundamental strategic point – if [...]
The post Georgia And The European Security Architecture Conundrum – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By William Chislett The EU averted a possible derailment of embattled Turkey’s moribund accession negotiations by agreeing to open the first chapter in three years, but not this month as originally promised because of Ankara’s excessively brutal handling of the demonstrations which have rocked the country and particularly appalled Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor.[1] Failure to [...]
The post The EU Bows To German Pressure To Delay Turkey’s Membership Talks – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Balázs Jarábik, Alexei Pikulik and Andrei Yeliseyeu An assessment of Belarus’s membership in the Common Economic Space (CES) offers an insight into what a future Eurasian Union (EAU), to be launched in 2015, may look like. The CES, formally established in January 2012, is seen as a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin, [...]
The post Belarus And The Eurasian Union: Incremental Integration – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.
Fatou Bom Bensouda, the Gambian-born deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), was never Washington’s first choice to succeed the inveterately self-promoting elitist ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. And it is doubtful that key Obama administration officials have changed their minds this week given Ms. Bensouda’s impassioned invitation on 6/27/13 to Palestine, urging its accession [...]
The post The White House Threatens To End Aid If Palestine Joins ICC – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.
No one likes a bully and no one likes a liar. The United States government is surely both because other nations have no problem openly treating it with the disdain it deserves. The saga of Edward Snowden provides the latest proof of the disrespect that America has brought upon itself. Its tantrums and rants mean [...]
The post The World Says Yes To Snowden, No To Obama – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.
By Ivana Jovanovic Serbian analysts say that Tomislav Nikolic’s achievements in the first year of his presidency include successful anti-corruption measures, resolving the Kosovo issue, building foreign relations, drawing foreign investments, reducing cabinet costs, working within the Constitutional Act and keeping pre-election promises. “If Nikolic was not elected, this government would not have been formed, [...]
The post Serbia’s Nikolic Praised For First-Year Achievements appeared first on Eurasia Review.
Thousands of Shias protested against Saudi Arabia’s ruling al-Saud family at the funeral of a wanted man shot dead by police, a killing that ended months of relative calm in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. At least 20 people have been shot dead in Eastern Province since early 2011, when Shias there staged protests against the [...]
The post Saudi Arabia: Thousands Of Shia Minorities Protest In Eastern Province appeared first on Eurasia Review.
The US Army confirmed on Thursday that access to The Guardian newspaper’s website has been filtered and restricted. Gordon Van Vleet, spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, or NETCOM, said in an email to the Monterey Herald that the Army is filtering “some access to press coverage and online content about the NSA [...]
The post US Army Restricted Access To Parts Of The Guardian Newspaper’s Website appeared first on Eurasia Review.
On June 27, investigative judges overseeing the investigation into the September 2009 killing and rape of opposition members, charged Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Pivi for his role in the crimes. The charges against Pivi, the minister for presidential security, represents a significant step forward for justice in Guinea. Human Rights Watch has extensively documented the events and [...]
The post Guinea: Minister Charged For Alleged Role In Stadium Massacre appeared first on Eurasia Review.
