Greater Middle East

Syria: ‘crematorium’ at regime death camp?

Rights groups have long charged the Assad regime with mass murder at its Saydnaya military prison. What are we to make of US claims that a crematorium has been installed there?

Greater Middle East

Syria: Trump approves plan to arm Rojava Kurds

The Rojava Kurds, caught in a pincer between Turkey and ISIS, are being forced to accept superpower aid—but with costs for Syrian revolutionary unity against ISIS and Assad.

Iraq

Syria: a No-Fly Zone for Rojava?

Following Turkish air-strikes on their forces in northern Syria, Kurdish leaders in the region issued a call for a "no-fly zone"—heightening the contradictions for Washington.

Greater Middle East

Syria: Russia and Assad dropping Rojava Kurds?

Insistence on regional autonomy and a federal solution for Syria is straining the de facto alliance between the Rojava Kurds and Damascus, despite their mutual enmity for Turkey.

North America

Trump-Putin breach: real or charade?

Is Trump's breach with Putin real, or is all the sudden sabre-rattling part of an elaborate charade to throw Congress off the scent of ongoing Trump-Putin collusion?

Greater Middle East

Hawks fear anarchist haven in Syria

The ultra-hawkish Henry Jackson Society warns that the US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria are allied with anarchists and elements of the Turkish and European armed left.

The Andes

Venezuelan oil goad in US-Russia game

Amid growing crisis in Venezuela, it emerges that the country's state oil company, heavily indebted to Russian giant Rosneft, made a big donation to Trump's inauguration festivities.

The Caucasus

Alania re-emerges from history, Georgia pist

The vote over the name change from South Ossetia to Alania reveals how the autonomist aspirations of the Ossetians (however legitimate) have been exploited in the Great Game.

Greater Middle East

Syria: gas attacks, air-strikes and hypocrisy

Trump, whose own air-strikes have killed hundreds, decides he must bomb an Assad air-base to retaliate for a gas attack—while the "anti-war" left is undisturbed by the gas attack.

Greater Middle East

Syria: carnage and betrayal in Raqqa endgame

The US air-lifts Kurdish fighters into ISIS territory in preparation for a final assault on Raqqa—while bombing the city, deepening the growing enmity between Kurds and Arabs.