US Facing 'Real Possibility' of Kobani Falling to Islamic State Group
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US Facing 'Real Possibility' of Kobani Falling to Islamic State Group by webdesk@voanews.com (Carla Babb)
Islamic State (IS) fighters are continuing their push into the mostly Kurdish Syrian border town of Kobani, and the U.S. military says it is facing the "real possibility" that the twon soon could fall to the extremist group. U.S. forces have launched several air attacks, including 11 in the past two days, to help Kurdish fighters repel IS militants. Kobani region premier Anwar Moslem told VOA the air raids have produced positive results. "If coalition forces continue striking like this, they can prevent help coming to ISIL from neighboring towns," Moslem said. "With the help of U.S. and coalition jets, we can expel ISIS from Kobani and save the lives of these civilians," said Moslem, using an alternate acronym for the group. Coalition limitations in Syria At the Pentagon, however, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby warned that coalition air power has its limits. "Air strikes alone are not going to do this, not going to fix this, not going to save the town of Kobani," Kirby said. Moslem says thousands of women, children and elderly remain in Kobani and need help, but unlike humanitarian relief efforts at Iraq's Mt. Sinjar and the town of Amerli, Kirby says there are "no plans for a humanitarian relief mission in Kobani," because many citizens already have fled. The Pentagon says coalition forces will continue to strike IS targets around the besieged Syrian town, but that the purpose of air strikes in Syria is to hurt the group's ability to command and control. "It’s not just about Kobani," Kirby said. "You’re seeing them trying to retake or take new territory in Anbar province (in Iraq). We believe that they are largely in control of the town of Hit right now, which is not that far from Fallujah and Ramadi. And Fallujah and Ramadi are not that far from Baghdad." Turkey on the fence This fighting against IS militants in Kobani is just a few kilometers away from Syria's border with Turkey, but the country's military has yet to enter the battle. "They (the Turks) have to make their own decisions based on their internal politics, external threats," Colonel Steve Warren, another Pentagon spokesman, told VOA. One fear in Turkey is that Kurds fighting IS militants in Syria are supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, deemed a terrorist organization by both Turkey and the United States. However, Warren says the United States is not as concerned with the PKK because IS militants pose a "more immediate threat." "They’ve chopped people’s heads off on TV. They’ve invaded Iraq. They’ve taken a sizeable chunk of northern Iraq. They’ve committed unspeakable atrocities throughout the region," Warren said. ‘Strategic patience’ Kirby said "strategic patience" is necessary in the long battle against IS militants, which could last for years. Warren said he is unaware of any forces from Syria's neighbors who have agreed to fight IS extremists in Syria alongside Syrian rebels, and officials say the coalition is not coordinating with the Free Syrian Army, Kurdish rebels, or the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Officials say the coalition can take offensive ground measures against IS militants in Syria once the training of moderate Syrian rebels begins in Saudi Arabia, but that is still months away. U.S Secretary of State John Kerry says he expects decisions about the role of Turkey and that of other countries in Syria to come within days. A U.S. envoy, retired General John Allen, will be in Turkey Thursday and Friday for what Kerry says will be "long meetings." Death toll, refugee surge The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the battle for Kobani has killed at least 400 people. The fighting has also forced nearly 200,000 residents and villagers from the area to flee and seek shelter across the frontier in Turkey. At least 18 protesters were killed in Turkey when demonstrators took to the streets of the largely Kurdish southeast and in major cities like Istanbul and Ankara to demand the Turkish government protect Kobani. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday Kobani may soon fall without support from outside ground troops. Turkey's parliament authorized the use of force against the Islamic State group, but the Turkish military has not intervened.
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 Lenta.ru |
Россиянин приговорен к 18 месяцам тюрьмы в США за торговлю военным снаряжением
Газета.Ru Россиянин Дмитрий Устинов приговорен к 18 месяцам тюрьмы в США за торговлю военным снаряжением. Об этом сообщает ТАСС. Такое решение 8 октября принял окружной суд Уилмингтона (штат Делавэр). После отбытия срока Устинов будет депортирован в Россию. По версии ... Россиянин приговорен в США к 18 месяцам тюрьмы за торговлю военным снаряжениемКоммерсантъ Россиянина осудили в США за торговлю военным оборудованиемLenta.ru Россиянин приговорен в США к 18 месяцам тюрьмыВести.Ru РБК -Московский комсомолец -НТВ.ru Все похожие статьи: 10 » |
 New York Times |
Russia Seeks Sanctions Tit for Tat
New York Times American companies with large investments in Russia have been apprehensive about possible retribution or losing business to Asian competitors, Alexis Rodzianko, the director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said in an interview. Russia... Russia Looks to Compensate Its Sanctioned EliteABC News Top Russian Officials Are Starting to Realize That the Country's Economy Is in ...Slate Magazine (blog) The West vs. Russia: The Unintended Consequences of Targeted SanctionsThe National Interest Online The Japan Times-U.S. News & World Report-VICE News all 529 news articles » |
Obama Assesses Campaign Against ISby webdesk@voanews.com (Luis Ramirez)
President Barack Obama has gone to the Pentagon to assess whether the U.S.-led campaign is working against militants of the Islamic State group. VOA White House correspondent Luis Ramirez reports.
Trial Set for 1 of 3 Asylum-Seeking Afghan Soldiersby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The deportation trial for one of three Afghan soldiers who fled a training exercise in the United States to seek asylum has been scheduled for December 9. An immigration judge in New York Wednesday set bond at $25,000 for Major Jan Arash. His lawyer said the major will not immediately be released because the amount is "extraordinarily high'' for a non-criminal immigration case. Arash, Captain Noorullah Aminyar and Captain Mohammed Nasir Askarzada have been held in an immigration jail in northern New York since September 22, when they were stopped trying to cross into Canada to request asylum there. The bail hearings for the other two men were postponed until October 22. The U.S. government argues they should be deported because their visas have expired. The officers say Taliban insurgents have threatened them for aiding the U.S. military. They said they also fear reprisals from the Afghan government for deserting the army. Their lawyer said the men have strong asylum claims, and he is coordinating an effort to raise money to cover their bail and living expenses.
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 Bloomberg |
Russia Can't Escape Historical Retrospection in Crisis
Bloomberg As Russia starts burning through foreign reserves in a bid to defend the ruble, flashbacks to the country's 1998 devaluation and default are inevitable. While the government is in a much stronger position today to fend off the crisis than it was then ... |
 НТВ.ru |
«Хотим видеть армию сильной»: США планируют начать поставки оружия на Украину
НТВ.ru Сегодня стало известно о том, что США готовят программу по предоставлению Украине так называемого летального вооружения. 2706. Поделиться ссылкой на выделенное. Twitter; Facebook; Вконтакте; Google+. Прямая ссылка: Нажмите правой клавишей мыши и выберите ... Пентагон "приравнял" Украину к сирийским террористамПравда.Ру США готовят программу по предоставлению Украине летального вооруженияУра-Информ Вашингтон рассматривает возможность поставок оружия КиевуПодробности Главред -Уралинформбюро -Телеканал 24 Все похожие статьи: 45 » |
Staunton, October 6 – As a result of government propaganda, nearly three out of four Russians believe that the West wants to weaken or dismember their country, Georgy Mirsky argues, and as a result, they will view any weakening or separatism that does occur regardless of its source as the result of Western policies and therefore turn toward fascist leaders.
Anyone who speaks with Russians on the streets these days, the Moscow commentator says, will hear people say this, in large measure because “politicians (and even the very most important) and scholars explain [to them] that the West has always hated Russia” and wished the Russian people ill.
But this is something new, something that leads even educated Russians to say when they hear about some misfortune in the world that the CIA is behind it, Mirsky continues. It is true that some in the West have disliked and opposed the Russian government, but that “hardly means ‘to hate the Russian people.’”
In nine years of working in the US, he continues, “he never heard a single bad word about Russians” as such. Instead, he notes, even those Americans who hadn’t heard of Tolstoy or Tchaikovsky “knew that Russia is a great country and had been an ally of America, and always asked with sympathy: ‘Why does such bad news all the time come from you?’”
And the same thing was true among Russians in Stalin’s times. “there were no anti-Western as opposed to ‘class’” hatreds in Russia, Mirsky says. Rather the reverse: people spoke with genuine respect for American products and showed their affection for Americans especially during the war.
But now things have changed in Russia. “Several years ago,” he recounts, “he saw with [his] own eyes on one of the central television channels” a journalist ask: “’Do you believe that the Americans have introduced AIDS in our country in order to destroy our people?’ and about 30 percent said they did not exclude this.”
“Now let us imagine,” he continues, “what could happen if (‘in correspondence with the intentions of the West’) will occur a weakening and dismemberment of Russia? How will this be reflected in the situation and attitudes of the people, on its psychology?”
The answer is obvious: “the people would become even more angry.” And in that state, they would not turn to the democrats and liberals but rather the extreme nationalists, “up to the open Nazis.” Such people wouldn’t come to power, “but the ideological-political climate in the country would be defined precisely by the pseudo-patriots, ‘the red-browns,’ the range of views of which vacillate from the Orthodox-monarchist to the Stalinist-neo-Bolshevik.”
But whatever the disagreements in this camp, they share a common hatred toward the West and more immediately toward ethnic minorities, and they have a common “conviction that the enemies of Russia are the Americans, the liberals and the gays.”
Nonetheless, such a country would still have nuclear weapons, and “in the West would grow a well-founded concern: what if the rising tide of Russian Nazism will lead by the logic of things to foreign aggression?”
“And here is the conclusion,” Mirsky says. The answer to the question as to whether the West is interested in having a weakened and dismembered Russia which is still in possession of nuclear weapons is “no” because “what could be a greater nightmare for Western politicians?”
No serious Western politician wants that to happen, he argues. Instead, all political figures and analysts in the West “without exception” believe that “only idiots or those with suicidal tendencies in the US could be interested in having Russia become ever weaker, poorer, more degraded and disintegrated.”
But that is not what people in Moscow now believe, Mirsky says. In various forums, those who “hysterically shout about the intention of the West to destroy Russia” dominate discussion and those who try to make a logical counter-argument are ignored.
Naum Korzhavin was right,” Mirsky concludes, “It makes sense to argue only with those who agree with you.” Unfortunately, “they are becoming fewer and fewer. Considering [his advanced] age,” the commentator says, he is happy that he “will not live to the time when the 71 percent “is converted into 99.”
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Ukraine warned the European Union on Wednesday not to accept pro-Russian rebels carving out a de facto state and said the frozen conflict could destabilize all of Europe.
Staunton, October 7 – At the end of the Soviet era, a joke circulated in Moscow that appears to be having an echo today. According to the story, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze met President Mikhail Gorbachev at the airport when the latter was returning from Estonia.
“What have you done?” Shevardnadze supposedly asks. Gorbachev replies: “Nothing. The Estonians asked for independence, but I said no. Then they asked if they could be independent for a week and again I said no. But they asked if they could be independent for a day, and I told them why not? After all, what could they do in a day?”
“Then you haven’t heard?” the Soviet foreign minister says. “No,” says Gorbachev. “What happened?” “Well,” says Shevardnadze, “the Estonians used that day of independence you gave them to declare war on Sweden, and then they surrendered. Now, with Swedish forces at Narva, what are you going to do?”
Today, the Kavkaz-Uzel.ru portal reports that the website of the Astrakhan Region duma or legislature featured for three hours a call by the leaders of that region to secede from the Russian Federation and form an independent Lower-Volga People’s Republic. The press service of the regional duma blamed this on a hacker attack.
Because the declaration was put up overnight, an official at the regional FSB office responded to an inquiry by Elena Grebenyuk of Kavkaza-Uzel by saying that he “could not say anything” and asked her to “phone back during normal working hours.”
 Российская Газета |
Новый глава Афганистана возобновил дело против брата экс-президента
Российская Газета Новый президент Афганистана Ашраф Гани Ахмадзай издал указ, предписывающий Верховному суду пересмотреть скандальное дело первого афганского частного банка, в котором фигурирует имя брата экс-президента Карзая. Как отмечают эксперты, это дело станет его проверкой ... Власти Афганистана казнили 5 мужчин, осужденных за групповое изнасилованиеНовости Армении Все похожие статьи: 17 » |
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School classes were cancelled and government agencies shut down in Chechnya this week to ensure students and workers turned up for a 100,000-strong rally in honor of President Vladimir Putin's birthday.
09.10.2014 17:01 <a href="http://nahnews.com.ua" rel="nofollow">http://nahnews.com.ua</a>
Москва, 9 октября.
Президент Украины Петр Порошенко не будет принимать участия в саммите СНГ в Минске 10 октября.
Как передает ИТАР-ТАСС со ссылкой на помощника президента РФ Юрия Ушакова, на саммите соберутся лидеры практически всех стран Содружества, при этом уровень представительства Украины пока не определен.
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