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The Kremlin is seeking clarifications from Israel regarding the air strikes that hit Syria on Sunday reportedly destroying Russian-made arms bound for Hezbollah, the DPA news agency reported on Monday. Israel has not officially acknowledged carrying out the attack, though that did not stop Iran and Syria from placing blame on Jerusalem. "Moscow is deeply worried by this dangerous development, the circumstances of which demand an explanation," a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Moscow is quoted as saying...

Secretary of State John Kerry says a new congressional authorization for U.S. military operations against the Islamic State should not be limited to Iraq and Syria and should not bind President Barack Obama from ever deploying ground troops against the group if necessary. […] Obama is using congressional authorizations that former President George W. Bush relied on after 9/11—ones that critics say are a legal stretch at best. …

Interpol (The International Criminal Police Organization) has requested the arrest of the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and global Sunni Islamist diaspora, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whose radical past includes praising suicide bombers against innocents as martyrs and describing Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as Allah’s gift to the world. Interpol is charging the terror Sheikh with agreement, incitement, and assistance to commit premeditated murder, facilitating a prison escape, arson, vandalism, and theft. Qaradawi has been known to espouse horrifically anti-Semitic sentiments, often praising figures such as Adolf Hitler and his Holocaust of 6-million Jews. “he managed to put them [Jews]...

Some lawmakers negotiated the inclusion of land grab provisions in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which will expand the already massive federal real state holdings. Critics consider those provisions pork because they have nothing to do with defense or national security. The NDAA provides guidance for U.S. defense spending and policy. It is considered a “must-pass” legislation. ... When asked to comment on the potential land grab, Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), told Breitbart News, "Controversial legislation that has not been debated and is completely irrelevant to our national defense should have no part...

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is often touted by the West as a “peace partner” of Israel’s, recently declared that there are six million “Palestinian refugees”, and that he is one of them. Abbas’s comments were made in an interview with the Egyptian daily Akhbar Al-Yawm, published last week and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In the interview, Abbas reiterated that he did not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, because this contradicted the Palestinian interests by “harming Israeli Arabs and preventing the return of the Palestinian refugees.” He said that there were six...

It is very possible that the president will not obtain a join authorization to bomb Syria; if he chooses to go ahead and attack anyway, Obama will incite a constitutional crisis—the first time in history that a president has decided to go to war against the declared wishes of Congress. The public and the courts will adjudicate the legality of that act, and it would be contentious. So the corner that Obama has painted himself into is now inescapable. Defying Congress will put the country into a Watergate/Monicagate mess. Not doing anything will confirm the administration’s impotence and only enhance...

<p>If our attitude is that Obama screwed up, but that now the least-screwed-up remedy is to attack Syria, then we are indeed in bad shape.</p> <p>Of the bad and worse alternatives, the worse is attacking without specifying our aims, means, and desired results. Yet to do so would convince Obama to drop the idea.</p>

It’s just about a week since Russia and China, in a rare joint action, vetoed a European-sponsored resolution that “strongly condemns the continued grave and systematic human rights violations by Syrian authorities.” The only thing strong about this defense of civilians was the use of the word “strongly.” And, as Colum Lynch reported in The Washington Post, the resolution demanded that Damascus “cease the use of force against civilians” and grant “fundamental freedoms” to prisoners.

A political crisis erupted in Sweden Tuesday when the extreme-right Sweden Democrats, the country's third largest party, vowed to block the new leftist-green government's budget, a move that could trigger new elections. "The Sweden Democrats will work towards taking down every government and every budget proposal that supports increased immigration at today's levels," the populist party's acting leader Mattias Karlsson said in a press conference. The party -- which holds the balance of power in parliament -- said its decision was in reaction to the minority government's pro-immigration policies. It pledged instead to support a rival budget proposal from the...

Sweden's minority, center-left government teetered on the brink of collapse on Tuesday after just two months in office when a far-right party announced it would vote against the 2015 budget, effectively dooming it to defeat. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party, which holds the balance of power in parliament, said it would support an alternative budget proposed by the center-right Alliance opposition bloc, leaving the government isolated.

The left-of-center government of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has been forced to call new elections less than three months after taking office.  Unable to pass a budget through the Rikstag (parliament), Lofven faced a choice of either resigning or calling snap elections, slated for March 22, 2015.  Although the budget was the trigger, most observers believe that immigration policy is at the root of the fall.  David Crouch of the U.K. Guardian explains: Sweden’s far right plunged the country into unprecedented political upheaval on Wednesday by forcing the government to gamble on fresh elections in the spring after the...

WASHINGTON - Biden, speaking at a forum on the Middle East at the Brookings Institution think tank, rejected calls for more sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program because "this is not the time to risk a breakdown when we still have a chance for a breakthrough." Biden said the sanctions imposed by the United States and allies were working by slowing Iran's economy, as well as its nuclear program. "It's frozen the program, it's given us a shot for a peaceful solution," he said. "I tell you, I think it's a less than even shot but it's a shot,...

Israeli planes bombed the area near Damascus international airport and the town of Dimas, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state television. No casualties were reported. There has been no confirmation of the air strikes from Israel.

In an October 21 TV interview, Egyptian human rights activist Ahmad Harqan explained why he had become an atheist and said that Islam is a "harsh religion," which was being implemented by ISIS and Boko Haram. They are doing "what the Prophet Muhammad and his companions did," said Harqan. According to media reports, Harqan and his pregnant wife survived an assassination attempt on October 25, and when they went to the police to complain, were arrested for disrespect to Islam. Following are excerpts from the program, which aired on Al-Kahera Wal-Nas TV: Atheist Ahmad Harqan: I do not believe in...

The ISIS in Kobani is facing severe damage and losses. The Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani has become the theatre of war between the Islamic State radicals, Kurds and the U.S. led allies who are pounding the town with air strikes to retrieve the town. According to a U.K. based monitoring group, the Islamic State fighters have faced severe reverses including hundreds of deaths and injury at the Kobani town, bordering Turkey. Highlighting the rising toll of ISIS cadres, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 50 militants had been killed in the last couple of days...

The Crimean Peninsula "is of huge importance for the Russian nation, just as the Temple Mountain is for people of Jewish faith," Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday in an attempt to defend Russia' annexation of the formerly Ukrainian region. .... "The west wanted to run Yugoslavian scenario in Russia. Just as Hitler failed to destroy Russia with his misanthropic ideas, everybody should just remember how these things end. Our army crushed the Nazis and liberated Europe," Putin said Continuing with his World War Two analogy, Putin said that there was also a need to cooperate to prevent such large...

(Reuters) - They have made enemies across the globe and endured three months of U.S.-led air strikes, but Islamic State fighters have surrendered little of their self-declared caliphate to the broad sweep of forces arrayed against them. Across thousands of square miles in Syria and Iraq, the radical Islamists face an unlikely mix of Iraqi and Syrian soldiers, Shi'ite and Kurdish militias and rival Syrian Sunni Muslim rebels.

Sweden's left-of-centre Prime Minister Stefan Lofven says he will call snap elections after his minority government lost a budget vote less than three months after coming to power. He said a new poll would take place on 22 March. ... The Sweden Democrats became the country's third largest party, with 13% of the vote, and is demanding a reversal in Sweden's liberal immigration laws, which party spokesman Mattias Karlsson has condemned as an "extreme immigration policy". Sweden has offered permanent residence to all Syrians fleeing the conflict and has the highest rate of asylum applications per capita of any EU...

The Islamic State Widens its Bridgehead in North AfricaPosted By Ari Lieberman On December 3, 2014 @ 12:05 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments As ISIS continues its brutal occupation of large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, effectively blurring the border between those two pseudo nations, a new, if not more menacing threat is emerging in North Africa where the Islamic State is looking to plant its cancerous roots.In Egypt, the Sinai based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, an Islamist organization responsible for dozens of terror attacks throughout the country announced on its Twitter account that it had...

Whether they're directly cooperating or just "deconflicting," the US air force is operating alongside the Syrian and the Iranian air forces over Iraq and Syria. On Monday, an unnamed US defense official told the Huffington Post that the US was aware that the Iranian Air Force was carrying out air strikes against ISIS targets in eastern Iraq. "We are aware of that. I wouldn't say we're necessarily concerned with it — we kind of have our eyes on it," the official told the Huffington Post. The official noted that the Iranian strikes occurred close to the Iran-Iraq border, away from...