MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : TRIBUT TO GREAT DIPLOMAT JARED KUSHNER!

Jared Kushner nominated for Nobel peace prize

Kushner and his deputy Avi Berkowitz join Greta Thunberg and Alexei Navalny on the nominations list – Mon 1 Feb 2021 04.00 GMT THE GUARDIAN

Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his deputy, Avi Berkowitz, have been nominated for the Nobel peace prize for their role in negotiating four normalisation deals between Israel and Arab nations known as the “Abraham Accords”.

Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, and Berkowitz, who was the Middle East envoy, were key figures in negotiating deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : NO SURPRISE ! Hello European Establishment!

Biden’s first trade actions: Protectionism 2, open markets 0

AEIdeas AMERICA ENTERPRISE  –  January 29, 2021

President Joe Biden’s first two trade moves signaled that domestic political imperatives and the next presidential election will exert powerful influence on the administration’s international economic policy. This is certainly the message from Biden’s decision to continue and even tighten the Buy America rules inherited from the Trump administration — and to pledge continuing stronger enforcement of the notoriously protectionist Jones Act.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEW : PKK/PYD & SDF commander says he is communicating with new U.S. Syria team—but the team has not been appointed yet

General Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)

By Enab Baladi 1 Feb 2021 – General Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said that communication is underway with the Syria team in the new U.S. administration, while the U.S. Department of State said that the team has not been formed yet.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : THE MULLAHS NOW HAVE CONTRACTS WITH RED CHINA & TALIBAN

 Taliban visit Iran, hope to sideline US

Tehran wants to undermine US role in Kabul, promote Taliban as either rulers of Afghanistan or equals to gov’t

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN   JANUARY 31, 2021  JERUSALEM POST

Iran FM Javad Zarif meets with Taliban delegation in Tehran, Jan. 2021

The Taliban rode high during US president Donald Trump’s administration because they knew he wanted to leave Afghanistan. They hoped for a trip to Camp David and acted like the rulers of Afghanistan when they attended peace talks in Doha, Qatar.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : THE CHINA – IRAN – CONTRACT & ISRAEL

MOVING ISRAEL TO CENTCOM: ANOTHER STEP INTO THE LIGHT
by Assaf Orion and Mark Montgomery – PolicyWatch 3425 – January 28, 2021

The new command shift, which is rooted in years of growing collaboration away from the limelight, promises to facilitate bilateral and regional security cooperation and burden sharing, while the IDF-EUCOM-CENTCOM experience sets the stage for the next frontier: U.S.-Israeli military dialogue on the China-Iran partnership.

On January 15, the Pentagon reported a change in the Unified Command Plan shifting Israel from U.S. European Command (EUCOM) to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). In announcing the new areas of responsibility, the Defense Department pointed to the recent Abraham Accords between Israel and various Arab states as “a strategic opportunity…to align key U.S. partners against shared threats in the Middle East.”

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS FOCUS : Is Israel in Secret Contact with Syria?

By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai KedarJanuary 29, 2021 ISRAEL BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,908,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Syrian president Bashar Assad, who now views the Iranian presence in his country as a burden, wants to oust Tehran from Syrian soil—and he has come to realize that achieving that goal will require Israel’s involvement. That may be why secret contacts are being reported between the two countries.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS ESSAY

For Clinton feminists, not all women are equal – Female liberation has been captured by a wealthy elite

Mary Harrington is an UnHerd columnist. – January 28, 2021

I can still remember the first time my older brother beat me in an arm wrestle. We’re only 17 months apart and shared everything as children – from Lego to imaginary worlds, as well a degree of (usually affectionate) casual violence. Until we both hit puberty, I could reliably beat him at arm wrestling.

Then at 11ish and 13ish, we arrived roughly simultaneously at the onset of puberty. Suddenly he was a lot taller than me and, seemingly overnight, noticeably stronger. Any illusions I had about boys and girls being equal in every way died in that moment, along with my title as All-Harrington Arm-Wrestling Champion.

If you’re a woman with a middle-class upbringing and career path, the fact that men are generally stronger than you doesn’t normally make much difference. Chances are you went to a school that discouraged bullying and punished physical violence. You probably now do an office-based job. So why care about arm wrestling?

After all, feminism is, as activist Cheris Kamarae put it, “the radical notion that women are human beings”: that means believing men and women are equal, sexism is bad, and being able to vote is good. What’s not to like?

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Turkish Militias and ProxiesTHE JERUSALEM INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGY AND SECURITY

By Jonathan Spyer 27 Jan 2021

PREFIX : “My colleague Hay Cohen Yanarocak and I have co-authored a study looking into Turkey’s use of non-state agencies and proxy militias in its regional strategy. The study was jointly commissioned by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and a UAE-based think tank called Trends. It is thus the first paper to be published under the sponsorship of an Israeli and an Emirati research organization. I am happy both to write about this important subject, and to hopefully contribute also to Israel-UAE cooperation via its publication in this framework:

Turkish Militias and Proxies

THE JERUSALEM INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGY AND SECURITY

 Dr. Jonathan Spyer

Erdoğan has created a private military and paramilitary system. He deploys this apparatus for domestic and foreign operations without official oversight.

Editorial note: This study, which reveals the extent to which Turkey aggressively deploys proxies and militias to project power across the Middle East, is the first fruit of a cooperation agreement between the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and TRENDS Research & Advisory of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The two institutes will continue to research together regional military and security issues. They also intend to conduct symposia and maintain academic exchange programs.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : BIBI WRNING BIDEN ! A DRAMA!

Netanyahu bristles in warning as Biden seeks reentry to Iran deal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hinting to the new US administration that reentering the original nuclear deal with Iran could spell Israeli military action.

Ben Caspit Jan 26, 2021 – AL MONITOR – The United States is not the only one preparing for the resumption of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. Israel, too, appears set to restore the historic drama to the world stage almost six years after it peaked with the signing of the deal with Iran and largely dropped from the agenda. Now, with the Joe Biden administration intending to enter into negotiations with Tehran as soon as possible and given reports reaching Jerusalem that some of the new president’s people believe the United States should first return to the original accord and only then discuss “amendments” or “improvements,” drama is unfolding behind the scenes in Israel.

weiterlesen / click to continue

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : THE GEZI PARK KOMPLEX IN TURKEY / OSMAN KAVALA

An appeals court in Turkey overturned the acquittal of philanthropist Osman Kavala and eight others convicted in the Gezi Park trial.

  • Reuters reports that the court said that the ruling to acquit did not take into account all the proper evidence. The court also reportedly cited another case against Kavala—related to the 2016 coup attempt and widely considered just as baseless as this one—saying that it should be taken into account in this ruling as well.
  • Kavala has been held in prison for more than three years. In a statement released in December when the trial for the coup attempt began, POMED noted that Kavala “has devoted his life to promoting a more civil, just and peaceful Turkey,” adding that his work has “actively improved Turkey’s stability and prosperity, upheld values such as tolerance and social reconciliation, and promoted equality for Turkey’s youth, poor, and ethnic and religious minorities.”

 

For more about the Gezi Park protests and subsequent trial, check out this POMED fact sheet.

On January 19, Turkey ordered a ban on advertising on Twitter and Pinterest after the companies refused to appoint legal representatives in the country in accordance with a new law that came into effect in October 2020.

  • The law requires social media companies with more than one million users to have legal representatives in Turkey to manage government complaints about content. It also requires the companies to store user data in Turkey, which raises serious concerns about privacy, particularly given Turkey’s rights record.
  • Authorities have threatened to decrease bandwidth for companies that do not comply with the order. If companies refuse to comply with government complaints about content, they will face fines.
  • Rights groups have strongly criticized the law as nothing more than a censorship tactic that “will enable the government to control social media, to get content removed at will, and to arbitrarily target individual users.”
  • Facebook, YouTube, and a handful of other international social media companies have already set up or begun compliance procedures.

www.mesop.de

 

« neuere Artikel / next articles   ältere Artikel / previous articles »