Tag: Iraq

Security Council high-level summit tackles growing threat of foreign terrorist fighters

Security Council high-level summit tackles growing threat of foreign terrorist fighters Responding to an unprecedented flow of foreign terrorist fighters and the growth of facilitation networks fuelling conflicts around the world, on Wednesday the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution to resolutely address this growing threat to international peace and security. The summit was chaired by US President Obama with all member states’ heads of state or government participating, which in itself signals the importance of the topic. Read the full text of Resolution 2178 (2014) here.

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Sunday Smack

Happy weekend eveybody! I hope you all had a great week and an even better weekend! Unfortunately I am still struggling with this terrible cold, I have spent almost all of September sick, and it only seems getting worse… Anybody has any suggestions to cure pneumonia-like coughing and shortness of breath? I think I’ve tried everything, really, but who knows… Anyway, this past week was packed in terms of world affairs with quite a few new developments. I will cover UNGA-related items separately, so here now I collected other stories from this week. Strikes in Syria: The International Law Framework…

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday Everybody! I was down with a terrible cold most of this week, which made me delay the launch of one new feature to the blog. But, better late than never, right? I’ll work on it next week. Hope you can take time to check out this week’s post while doing your Sunday things. 🙂 The Legality of ISIS Air Strikes Under International Law While John Kerry continues his campaign to collect supporters for the cause, this is a great post about the alternatives of making bombing Syria look like it was legal.  The NATO Summit’s Most Important Outcome…

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Recipes From the Islamic State’s Laptop of Doom

Recipes From the Islamic State’s Laptop of Doom “The black Dell laptop found in an Islamic State safe house inside Syria not only contains instructions forhow to weaponize the bubonic plague, it also includes thousands of files that provide a window into how would-be jihadists become radicalized, and how they learn to carry out their deadly craft.” “There’s also evidence that Muhammed has a sweet tooth: The laptop contains recipes for baking a cake, making banana mousse, and for the preparation of caramel.He even kept some screen shots of a music playlist he listened to in January 2010, which included the…

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Sunday Smack

Hey, everybody! Other than the event-of-the-week NATO summit, the Ukrainian truce agreement was the other major news these past days. You will find that neither was covered by my favorite bloggers yet (well, bloggers need days off too…). I am planning to do a post about the NATO summit myself that I didn’t get around to edit yet, so I certainly get that. And just a quick service announcement: I should have announced it in a separate post, but I forgot (well after a near heart attack when I almost deleted the whole blog by accident… yeah, don’t ask…). So,…

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Sunday Smack

Hey Everybody! Hope all your weekends are going fine and you can take a few minutes to check out this week’s posts. With Maliki Gone, Can Iraq’s New Prime Minister Put His Country Back Together? That we’re going to have to wait and see. What You Need to Know about the UN Human Rights Council’s Gaza Investigation Sadly, it is probably true that the investigation will be no use in improving the situation. I have to insert one of my favorite quotes from Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy here. He writes that fact-finding missions are “the standard device for diplomats signaling that…

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Obama’s “Limited” Mission in Iraq

Obama’s “Limited” Mission in Iraq newyorker: John Cassidy examines President Obama’s decision to launch targeted airstrikes in Iraq: http://nyr.kr/1r05ZVT “Once the U.S. bombing starts, when will it stop? That is one of the many tough questions that Obama and his colleagues will have to answer. Are the sole goals of the mission to…

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Sunday Smack

Hello Everybody! I hope you all have spent the longest Saturday of the decade well! I keep being busy with important deadlines approaching both in my work and my studies, that’s the reason this blog seems to be neglected these days. Here’s what I recommend from my weekly reading anyway: UN Chief Warns Military Strikes in Iraq May Backfire The Secretary General actually suggests that keeping things unresolved once again and arming one side against the other would probably even worsen things in the region. World Refugee Day Draws Attention to Shortcomings of International Law World Refugee Day was Friday…

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday, people! I hope you are all having a great weekend! Has anybody else been hampered by Feedly’s down periods this week? I hope it’s all solved by now, because in the end I had to scroll through 250+ posts this weekend. Here’s what I thought was worth sharing with you out of all of it. Jihadi takeover in Mosul and Iraq’s looming breakdown This week’s events in Iraq adumbrates very difficult times to come while there already are plenty of problems to solve in the region. Why the UN General Assembly Just Selected Uganda’s Anti-Gay Foreign Minister as…

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Sunday Smack

This week was so eventful world affairs news-wise that it was almost hard to pick but a few of my favorite blog posts. I tried my best though. On world affairs: A Rare Bit of Good News from Syria Shows What’s Possible When the International Community is United January 22 will be the next occasion for the Syrian government to prove how cooperative it is. CAR President: I’m Not Resigning! UPDATE: He Resigned! Whether this will bring any positive changes for the CAR is unclear. Hopefully it will. Iraq: on the brink of implosion? Ever worrysome news coming from Iraq, while…

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