Iraqi PM announces west Mosul attack as images of security forces' brutality emerge
Video evidence of executions and torture stokes Sunni-Shia tension as troops launch final push to retake city from Isis
Graphic videos of men in Iraqi security force uniforms carrying out beatings and summary executions on the streets of Mosul have cast a shadow over the campaign to retake the city from Islamic State as prime minister announced the launch of military operations.
“We announce the start of a new phase in the operation, we are coming Nineveh to liberate the western side of Mosul,” said Haider al-Abadi in a brief televised speech.
The violent scenes, posted on social media pages supporting the Iraqi government forces, are reminiscent of Isis’s own propaganda and starkly contrast with the overwhelmingly positive impression left so far by the US-trained troops leading the battle to retake Iraq’s second city.
Eurasia's fault lines move between sovereignty and democracy
From territorial integrity to democratic aspirations, Eurasian nations have highlighted a number of critical fault lines shaping global geopolitics. Lewis Sanders reports from the Munich Security Conference.
Political leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss geopolitical fault lines emerging between Europe and Asia - and beyond.
According to the participants, disputes over territorial sovereignty and regional influence are among the most relevant barriers to peace on the Eurasian land mass.
"Territorial integrity must be respected while internationally recognized boundaries cannot be redrawn," Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said Saturday at the conference.
Aliyev accused Armenia of occupying the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is run be a de facto independent state of ethnic Armenians.
Why Malaysia is refusing to return Kim Jong Nam’s body to North Korea
The assassination of Kim Jong Un's half-brother provides an unusual perspective into North Korea's internal politics.
The investigation into the death of Kim Jong Nam is still ongoing. And now, the fate of the deceased man’s body is getting a geopolitical edge.
Malaysian authorities said Friday that they would conduct a second autopsy on the body of Mr. Kim, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after the first one yielded no definitive conclusions about the cause of his death.
Malaysian police also say they will not return the body to North Korea until a family member claims the body – with a matching DNA sample to prove the relationship.
WHY DO SO MANY AMERICANS FEAR MUSLIMS? DECADES OF DENIAL ABOUT AMERICA’S ROLE IN THE WORLD.
Jon Schwarz
THERE’S BEEN LOTS of attention-grabbing opposition to Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive order, from demonstrations to court orders. But polls make it clear public opinion is much more mixed. Standard phone polls show small majorities opposed, while web and automated polls find small majorities continue to support it.
What surprises me about the poll results isn’t that lots of Americans like the ban — but that so many Americans don’t. Regular people have lives to lead and can’t investigate complicated issues in detail. Instead they usually take their cues from leaders they trust. And given what politicians across the U.S. political spectrum say about terrorism, Trump’s executive order makes perfect sense. There are literally no national-level American politicians telling a story that would help ordinary people understand why Trump’s goals are both horrendously counterproductive and morally vile.
Executive order that incarcerated Japanese Americans is 75
(Mainichi Japan)Satsuki Ina was born behind barbed wire in a prison camp during World War II, the daughter of U.S. citizens forced from their home without due process and locked up for years following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Roughly 120,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans were sent to desolate camps that dotted the West because the government claimed they might plot against the U.S. Thousands were elderly, disabled, children or infants too young to know the meaning of treason. Two-thirds were citizens.
And now, as survivors commemorate the 75th anniversary of the executive order that authorized their incarceration, they're also speaking out to make sure that what happened to them doesn't happen to Muslims, Latinos or other groups.
Drought And Climate Change Are Forcing Young Guatemalans To Flee To The U.S.
What’s happening in Guatemala is, in many ways, a harbinger of what’s to come throughout the world.
JUMAYTEPEQUE, Guatemala ― Junior Dario “J.R.” Henriquez* started thinking about heading north on the long, hard migrant trail to the United States when the coffee plants started withering. Drought and a pernicious fungus called roya ― coffee rust ― were wreaking havoc on the plantation here, where J.R. worked as a day laborer. An especially debilitating drought had suffocated this part of Guatemala since 2014 and the rust, which proliferates in lower altitudes, higher temperatures and among stressed plants, was spreading across the leaves like an accumulation of stains. Instead of full blooms of coffee berries packed thick on the branches like spangling beads, the plants were paltry and sparse, the leaves wilting on the branches.
The manager of the farm where J.R. was working announced he was cutting workers one day in 2015. There was little to do on the dwindling farm. J.R. kept his job but several of his friends, including his younger brother, lost theirs. Even J.R. was infrequently called to work. Weak crops meant less work, and less money. There used to be plenty to do around here during the harvest, so the young men who had been laid off looked for work on the other farms. All they found were more dry plants and thin harvests.
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