Netanyahu says he agreed to deal with Putin to avert Syria clashes
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he reached agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ways to prevent clashes between their militaries in war-torn Syria.
Chinese President Xi Jinping embarks on his first state visit to the United States this week, which includes talks with President Obama, meetings with business leaders, and a trip to the United Nations in New York. Although analysts are watching the trip closely for signs of shifts in the U.S. relationship, there are few big expectations among people in Beijing. VOA’s William Ide has more from China’s capital city.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/expectations-low-for-china-xi-us-trip/2972382.html
Shiite rebels in Yemen released two Americans, two Saudis and a Briton on Sunday after detaining them for around six months, Yemeni and US officials said.
Yemeni officials say airstrikes by the Saudi-coalition targeting Shiite rebels in Yemen have killed more than 15 people from the same family in the capital, Sanaa.
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Russia and Iran have stepped up coordination inside Syria as they move to safeguard President Bashar al-Assad’s control over his coastal stronghold, according to officials in the U.S. and Middle East.
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On Sunday, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, arrived in Iran for talks on the nuclear agreement, as part of what appears to be an attempt by the UN nuclear watchdog to evaluate whether Iran ran a military nuclear program in the past.
Amano is expected to meet with various Iranian nuclear scientists for answers on this very subject. On December 15, ahead of the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Tehran, he is slated to present the world with definitive answers that will determine whether Iran complied with the terms of a nuclear deal signed on July 15. But the Islamic Republic is not waiting for a green light from Amano or the international community, and is working under the assumption that the sanctions will be lifted.
Since the deal was signed, Iran has significantly increased its financial support for two of the largest terror groups in the region that have become political players, Hamas and Hezbollah. In the years before the deal was signed, the crippling sanctions limited this support, which had significantly diminished along with Iran’s economy. But Tehran’s belief that tens, or hundreds, of billions of dollars will flow into the country in the coming years as a result of sanctions relief has led to a decision to boost the cash flow to these terror organizations.
This support, for example, has enabled Hezbollah to obtain highly developed new armaments, including advanced technologies that many militaries around the world would envy. Al-Rai, a Kuwaiti newspaper, reported Saturday that Hezbollah has received all the advanced weaponry that Syria has obtained from the Russians. The report cited a security source involved in the fighting in Zabadani, on the Syria-Lebanon border, where Hezbollah is fighting the al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State, and other groups. It is evidently the growing Iranian financial support that is enabling the Lebanese Shiite militia to purchase advanced weapons, including ones that were hitherto outside of its reach.
The increased Iranian financial support for Hezbollah in the wake of the deal is not unrelated to other political developments in the region. The growing sense of security in Iran with regard to its political status has also been bolstered by a Russian decision to increase its involvement in Syria, and may be what drove Iran to send hundreds of members of its Revolutionary Guard Corps to play an active role in the Syria fighting. Iran, along with Hezbollah and Moscow, has decided to dispatch sizable forces to the Syrian front in the past few weeks to prevent the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime.
The Shiite-Russia axis has been anxiously watching the Islamic State creep toward Damascus in recent months, and saw the territory controlled by Assad, an important ally, diminished to the coastal region of Latakia south of the capital. The Iranians and Russians grasped that not only was Damascus endangered, but also access to the Alawite regions, from Homs to Damascus — thus the urgency for intervention, including with troops on the ground.
Syrian President Bashar Assad speaking to Russian media outlets RT, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Channel 1, Russia 24, RIA Novosti and NTV channel, September 15, 2015. (Screenshot: RT)
The high morale and sense of security among the Iranians in the wake of the deal don’t stop with increased support of Hamas and Hezbollah. Today, Iran is the main, and likely only, power attempting to build terror cells to fight Israel on the Syrian Golan Heights, in areas under Assad’s control. This does not mean that the Syrian president is aware of these attempts or green-lighted them. But for Israel, that does not matter. Tehran is investing more effort and money after the nuclear deal to carry out attacks against Israel from the Golan, even under Assad’s nose.
As regards the Palestinians, in the past two months, Iran has sent suitcases of cash – literally – to Hamas’s military wing in Gaza. Not everyone is happy about this, including some Hamas officials. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who was always the man who controlled the money, has found himself outside the circle of Iranian funding over the summer. Tehran, which was none too pleased by his visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with King Salman, decided to take revenge on him in an original way. It bypassed Mashaal and has handed over the suitcases, by way of couriers, directly to the leaders of the group’s military wing in the Gaza Strip.
The exiled head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, gestures during a press conference in the Qatari capital Doha, on September 7, 2015. (AFP/ AL-WATAN DOHA/KARIM JAAFAR)
The Hamas military leaders, for their part, are happy about two things: First, the money they are receiving during a difficult economic period in Gaza; second, the opportunity to weaken Mashaal and his cronies, who have been living in luxury in Qatar and dictating to Hamas in Gaza what to do and what not to do, who to get closer to (Saudi Arabia) and who to stay away from (Iran).
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A car bombing has killed 11 people and wounded some 40 in the Iraqi capital.
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Russian spy jailed for treason over Swedish job letterby Alec Luhn in Moscow
Defence lawyer criticises behind-closed-doors trial after radio engineer found guilty of passing secrets to another government
A court in Moscow has sentenced a Russian former intelligence radio engineer to 14 years in prison after he wrote to a Swedish company looking for work.
Gennady Kravtsov was found guilty of state treason and sent to a maximum-security prison colony at a hearing on Monday. The judge said Kravtsov had passed information that included state secrets to another government, adding that the defendant had promised not to reveal this information when he served in Russian intelligence.
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Tests to establish whether a Russian whistleblower living in Britain was poisoned with a rare plant toxin will take place within days after samples of the shrub were obtained from Asia, an inquest hearing has been told.
At least six arrests were made following a Black Lives Matter rally in Austin, the rally was held in conjunction to a "Police Lives Matter" rally occurring in the same area.
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Russia is calling for "concrete action" after a shell landed on its embassy compound in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The Russian global news broadcaster RT has been found guilty by Ofcom of misleading its audience after it reported a “massive investigation” into claims that the BBC’s Panorama had faked pictures of a chemical attack in Syria.
Russia says that its embassy in Damascus has come under shelling that hasn’t inflicted any casualties or damage — an attack that comes amid ongoing Russian military buildup in Syria.
Russian investigators say the damage caused by the detained governor of the northwestern Komi region and his accomplices amounts to billions of rubles.
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A year after the president asked for authority to train and equip Syrian opposition forces, the program is in tatters.
The Pentagon is facing sharp scrutiny from lawmakers for reportedly punishing U.S. soldiers who tried to prevent the sexual abuse of children in Afghanistan, according to a letter sent Monday to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey.
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R., Fla.) expressed shock and dismay at reports that U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan were ordered to ignore the sexual abuse of young boys by Afghans working with the Untied States in the war torn country.
“I urge you to immediately reverse the Pentagon’s shameful policy of punishing soldiers who try to stop the sexual abuse of children in Afghanistan,” Buchanan wrote in a letter to Dempsey that describes “a chilling policy that told American soldiers to look the other way when Afghan allies sexually abused young boys, sometimes on military bases.”
“American soldiers serving our nation in the Army and Marines in Afghanistan have been told to stand down when encountering child sexual abuse perpetrated by local allies,” Buchanan writes, citing a new report by the New York Times. “Protecting child predators is abhorrent and inconsistent with our values as a nation. I call on you to end this shameful policy immediately.”
Buchanan expresses particular shock over allegations that those U.S. soldiers who tried to report and prevent the abuse faced retaliation by officials.
“It is bad enough if the Pentagon is telling our soldiers to ignore this type of barbaric and savage behavior, but it’s even worse if we are punishing those who try to stop it,” the lawmaker wrote.
A copy of the letter also was sent to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
The post Pentagon Punishing U.S. Soldiers Who Tried to Stop Child Rape appeared first onWashington Free Beacon.
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