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Russia on Friday rejected U.S. concerns about its use of a former American base in Vietnam for the refueling of Russian bomber flights around U.S. territory in the Pacific, dismissing recent U.S. statements as "puzzling" and "strange." It was reported on Wednesday that the United States had asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay for tanker aircraft that have refueled nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region. "It is strange to hear such statements from representatives of the state whose armed forces are permanently stationed in a number of Asia-Pacific countries and...

A major campaign rally for the right wing is planned for Sunday evening in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. The “United for the Land of Israel” rally is being organized by Nachala, an organization run by former Kedumim mayor Daniella Weiss and United Headquarters for the Land of Israel. Like everything else to date in the run up to the Israeli elections, it too is fraught with internal conflict. Right wing leaders are opposed to the rally and Weiss has been trying for several weeks to convince them to attend the event. Many of the leaders on the right actually wanted...

Britain's First World War debt has finally be repaid in full – more than 100 years after the outbreak of the conflict. The Government repaid some £1.9billion still owed to more than 100,000 people who held 'War Bonds', issued in 1917 to help fund the military effort. George Osborne said he could pay off the debts because he can borrow the money cheaper elsewhere.

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell deferred to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on the Friday edition of her program, and let the Obama administration flack attack the 47 Republican senators who signed an open letter to Iran's leaders. Mitchell led into the segment by playing President Obama's condescending "I'm embarrassed for them" and "it's close to unprecedented" shots at the senators, and gave Psaki a platform to promote the administration's talking points on the issue. [video below] The journalist first pointed out that Secretary of State John Kerry's upcoming trip to Switzerland for "another round of nuclear talks with Iran negotiations –...

Vanity Fair estimated the cost of the Iraq War to be $3 trillion. Iran has a population that is more than double the population of Iraq, and is much richer than Iraq was in 2003. A War with Iran will cost over 6 trillion dollars, without even factoring inflation since 2003. When inflation is factored in, that would add about $10 trillion dollars to the deficit. Can America afford the $10 trillion it will take to wage war and occupy Iran?

Four days before elections, most surveys have Netanyahu’s party 3-4 seats behind Herzog’s On the last weekend before Tuesday’s general election, Israeli media published the final polls for the current election cycle before a four-day moratorium on surveys. The Zionist Union kept its lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in those polls, with most giving Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s joint list a 3-4 seat edge over its competitor. A Maariv poll had Zionist Union with 25 and Likud with 21. Yesh Atid was tied with the Joint (Arab) List for 13, with Jewish Home trailing at 11....

Sen. Ted Cruz tells Israel Hayom: The White House is hostile to Netanyahu because he refuses to be silent on Iran • It's very unethical of Obama to work against a close friend, he says • "I just pray the American people listened to [Netanyahu] closely." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has plenty of complaints against the Obama administration, which, in his mind, is not defeating Islamic terrorism and is even implementing a policy leading Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. "Obama's legacy is going to be the election of a Republican president in 2016 -- like Reagan after Carter in 1980...

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said his suspicions that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would use his address to Congress last week to bolster his own reelection campaign have come true. The Israeli Likud Party, which Netanyahu leads, released a campaign advertisement Thursday that includes footage from Netanyahu's speech to Congress last week. Members of Congress are shown applauding as Netanyahu speaks at the House dais. Cohen, who is Jewish, was among the more than 50 Democrats who skipped Netanyahu's speech. The Tennessee Democrat said he suspected Netanyahu would use the footage for campaign ads ahead of the Israeli elections next...

Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky is far from alone in her anger at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following his recent speech to a joint meeting of Congress warning against a deal with Iran being negotiated by the Obama administration and six other governments. But Schakowsky, an eight-term Jewish veteran of Congress and member of the party’s House leadership, is the first to openly urge regime change in Jerusalem. Asked in a March 10 phone interview about steps that can be taken to mend fences between Israel and congressional Democrats, the Illinois eight-term congresswoman told the Forward that the most positive...

I'm going to comment on the ethics of nuking Japan. This is one of those perennial issues that America-bashers constantly raise. There are two extremes we need to avoid: "my country right or wrong," and "blame America first." For me the war has a personal dimension. My late father was a WWII vet who served in the Pacific theater. He was radio operator in the Air Force. His squadron conducted reconnaissance over Japan. He had some interesting stories to tell: i) He trained on B-17s in Alaska, then flew on B-29s in Florida. ii) Our pilots discovered the jet stream....

Inking this accord increases the chances that Israel and the United States take military action against Iran to stop its nuclear program The Obama Administration may be on the verge of completing a deal that leaves Iran with a substantial nuclear capability, but about a year away from a bomb’s worth of fissile material. By not insisting on the dismantlement of any major nuclear infrastructure, or even on the complete cessation of enrichment activities, the White House is betting that not only is Iran likely to heed the deal, but also that the United States would have enough time to...

A key European diplomat said Thursday that the letter to Iran from Senate Republicans “was not helpful” to ongoing international nuclear talks with Iran, as other officials lowered expectations for reaching a framework deal this month. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was reacting to a letter signed by 47 Senate Republicans warning Tehran that any nuclear deal it strikes with President Barack Obama will be non-binding and easily undone. Steinmeier added that to call the missive unhelpful was “an understatement.” Germany is among the six nations conducting talks with Iran in an effort to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear...

How do we know the war is coming in the first place? Because the advertising for it is out. Amongst plenty of other evidence, one Chinese front organisation conducted a poll on Australian attitudes to the ANZUS treaty and a Chinese attack on Japan. Why would they conduct such a poll unless they are going to attack Japan? Not that they were interested in the results as such. They just wanted to be able to publicize the poll in order to try to keep Australia on the sidelines of their war. The war will have two functions for China. Firstly,...

Moscow’s involvement in conflict has been on such a scale that strain on its military is starting to show, according to report by Royal United Services Institute. Large-scale intervention in eastern Ukraine by regular Russian troops began last August, reaching a peak of 10,000 in December, and Moscow has been struggling to maintain operations on such a scale and intensity, according to a report. The Rusi report also confirms... that Russian artillery shelled Ukrainian positions from inside Russian territory... the Rusi report says that a total of 42,000 Russian troops from 117 combat and combat-support units have been involved, either...

Former U.S. secretary of State Madeleine Albright talks about the controversial letter to Iran, Hillary Clinton's e-mails and how much progress has been made when it comes to gender equality.

Top Iranian Negotiator: ‘We are the winner’ Iran’s foreign minister and chief negotiator in nuclear talks with the West declared victory for his country, stating that no matter how the negotiations end, Tehran has come out “the winner,” according to remarks made on Tuesday and presented in the country’s state-run press. Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister, stated in remarks before the country’s powerful Assembly of Experts, which recently installed a hardline new cleric as its leader, that the nuclear negotiations have established Tehran as a global power broker. “We are the winner whether the [nuclear] negotiations yield results...

Democrats and the mainstream media have used the words “traitor” and “treason” to describe a letter to Iranian leaders, drafted by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and signed by 47 Republican Senators, that warns any nuclear deal President Barack Obama signs may be voided by a future administration or Congress if it is not ratified by the Senate. Since they have brought the “t-words” into the debate, it is worth examining the case against Obama himself, which is far more damning. Obama’s explicit policy is to elevate a sworn enemy of the United States to a “regional power,” in what...

Secretary of State John Kerry says he’s in “utter disbelief” over the letter to Iranian leaders led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and signed by 46 other Republican senators, warning any Iranian nuclear deal reached with the U.S. could be revoked by the next president or modified by Congress. “This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,” Kerry said Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “This risks undermining the confidence that foreign governments in thousands of important agreements commit to with the United States.” In his 29 years as...

“Never Again.” It is a clarion call that paradoxically commands both solidarity and irony. Despite the international community uniting behind this phrase more than half a century ago after the horrors of the holocaust—vowing to “Never Again” stand idly by—genocide persisted well into the 20th century and anti-Semitism is making a frightening comeback. Is “Never Again” just another failed promise? Or is it still a call to action? For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is undoubtedly the latter. In a press release following Netanyahu’s joint meeting address to the United States Congress, House Speaker John Boehner highlighted the fact...

The radical left-led Greek government insisted Tuesday that the debt-ridden country has never been fully compensated by Germany for its brutal World War II Nazi occupation, linking the issue with Greece's fraught bailout negotiations. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said a 1960 reparation deal with Germany did not cover key Greek demands, including payments for wrecked infrastructure, war crimes and the return of a forced loan exacted from occupied Greece.