The UN has announced a week-long humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen that will run through next Friday, corresponding with the end of Ramadan. If it holds, this offers the possibility of some desperately needed assistance reaching the people of Yemen, who are obviously suffering tremendously as the civil war there continues with no end in sight. … Continue reading A little welcome good news

With time running out to keep Greece nominally solvent and still in the Eurozone, the Greek government submitted a new proposal to its major creditors (the "Troika") yesterday that...well, actually seems to have been pretty well-received: A top eurozone official says Greece has submitted "thorough" proposals aimed at getting a vital third bailout and averting … Continue reading Whatever else Syriza is, it’s first and foremost a political party

The Iran talks, plus the interim nuclear agreement under which they're operating, have been extended through Monday. Progress is being made, supposedly, but not enough and not fast enough to get anything done this week. If no deal is reached by Monday... https://twitter.com/FaghihiRohollah/status/619521933558849536 https://twitter.com/FaghihiRohollah/status/619522608833409024 https://twitter.com/FaghihiRohollah/status/619529009139945473 Remember how I said you should ignore stuff coming out … Continue reading Wild weekend in Vienna

Hi there. I'm Some Guy on the Internet, who has an unexpected free few minutes today to give you some friendly advice about getting wrapped up in all the latest Iran nuclear talks news from Vienna and elsewhere: don't do it. Oh, I mean, if you're interested in the outcome of the talks or, I … Continue reading An Iran PSA

Folks, today was a long day, and tomorrow promises to be more of the same, so I hope you'll forgive the lack of posting today and tomorrow. Before I pour myself a big glass of chocolate milk and put on a Simpsons DVD, though, I've got enough mental space for a short update about the … Continue reading If we talk about nothing else, let’s have an Iran update

I guess we'll see how that goes: A Burundian general who backed a failed coup in May has threatened to launch an armed uprising after President Pierre Nkurunziza refused to bow to opposition and international demands to abandon his bid for a third term. General Leonard Ngendakumana, a deputy to the leader of the aborted … Continue reading Scheduling a coup in advance

I am no economist, but from my purely layman's perch it seems to me that the nub of the Greece issue comes down to one empirically demonstrated fact: austerity doesn't work. Chasing a budget surplus, the kind of thing you need to really start paying creditors, by cutting government spending and raising taxes on the … Continue reading What are we all on about then?

Yemen expert Stephen W. Day examines the failure of Yemen peace talks at WaPo's Monkey Cage blog: Many analysts depict the current fighting as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Others describe it as a sectarian conflict between Muslims who identify with opposite sides of the Sunni-Shiite split, which of course also characterizes … Continue reading The trouble with Yemen (or: Somebody agrees with me)

Apart from the news that their deadline has been extended through Friday (at which point it will...be extended again, I would imagine), there's not a whole lot to say about the Iran talks at the moment. But there is always something to say about how the "no deal" folks are covering the talks, because they … Continue reading The correction never makes up for the “error”

Remember how things in the Sinai are kind of getting worse, and how that represents a real threat for Israel? Yeah, so: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's affiliate in Egypt has claimed responsibility for a rocket attack from the Sinai Peninsula into southern Israel on Friday. "Three Grad rockets were … Continue reading Israel’s problems, inside and out