SYRIA And here we go: A pair of top White House officials is pushing to broaden the war in Syria, viewing it as an opportunity to confront Iran and its proxy forces on the ground there, according to two sources familiar with the debate inside the Donald Trump administration. Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for … Continue reading Middle East update: June 16 2017

UNITED STATES The biggest news in the US over the past couple of days has obviously been the shooting incident in Virginia on Wednesday at a baseball practice being held by Congressional Republicans in advance of the big Congressional baseball game that was held Thursday evening. There's nothing I could say about this that hasn't … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: June 14-15 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN ISIS has managed to seize Tora Bora, the mountain hideaway in Nangarhar province that Osama bin Laden used to call home, before he moved into the Pakistani army chief of staff's backyard without anybody in Pakistan knowing about it. Boy, nothing symbolic about that. On Thursday they also managed to find time to … Continue reading Asia/Africa/Australia update: June 14-15 2017

SYRIA As the Raqqa battle intensifies, civilians--naturally--are paying the heaviest price. UN investigators reported Wednesday on the "staggering" loss of life seen in Raqqa since heavy coalition bombing there began in March. Hundreds of civilians have been killed so far and the battle for the city is really still in its opening stages. ISIS is … Continue reading Middle East update: June 14-15 2017

UNITED STATES Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified today in the Trump-Russia investigation and said essentially nothing. No, really, senators were mad at how much nothing he said. He didn't even really assert a justification for saying nothing, either. Just kind of said, "eh, I'm not going to say anything," and that was pretty much that. … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: June 13 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN Here's some good news: The World Bank on Tuesday approved financing worth more than $500 million for Afghanistan to support a string of projects to boost the economy, help improve service delivery in five cities and support Afghan refugees sent back from Pakistan. The bank said the six grants, including donor money, worth … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: June 13 2017

QATAR Today in "Me Or Your Lying Eyes," it's Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir: "There is no blockade of Qatar. Qatar is free to go. The ports are open, the airports are open," Jubeir said alongside a silent Tillerson who had called last week for the embargo on Qatar to be "eased". "The limitation on … Continue reading Middle East update: June 13 2017

UNITED STATES Many small updates from Trumpland tonight, including one I'm saving for the end of this update. First, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is testifying on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee as it investigates links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. Sessions is going to be questioned about his own contacts with Russian … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: June 12 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN You ever read a news story and you just have nothing to say about it? I don't mean that you're uninformed on the topic or that you don't have plenty of thoughts related to it, but that you just can't think of the right way to express how, say, awful it is? That's … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: June 12 2017

QATAR First off, here's me on today's Majority Report today talking about Qatar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN9DyeQbzYo The Qataris have really latched on to Kuwait's efforts to mediate their diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia. This makes sense, in that the Kuwait route must seem like the only way out of this mess that doesn't involve turning Qatar into … Continue reading Middle East update: June 12 2017