The United Nations children’s organization UNICEF announced this week that the Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram has used 27 children as suicide bombers in the past three months, nearly the same amount as in the entirety of 2016.
Author: Frances Martel
Socialism Has Destroyed Venezuela – So Why Does the Opposition Trust the Socialist International?
Socialism has destroyed Venezuela. State corporate takeovers, strict price controls, and a food rationing system have left the country poor, sick, and literally starving.
With Venezuela in Open Revolt, Dictator Maduro Heads to Havana to Bash Trump
The political situation in Venezuela has destabilized significantly as the socialist dictatorship has attempted to nullify the opposition-held legislature and banned a presidential contender from public office for fifteen years. It is a bizarre time for dictator Nicolás Maduro to leave the country, yet he has done so, attending a leftist summit in Havana.
In Trump White House, Wildcard Putin Faces First Assertive America of His Career
As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives in Moscow for talks with the Russian government – no longer scheduled to meet President Vladimir Putin himself – international observers have expressed growing concern of a showdown between two of the world’s major political powers. Those who criticize President Donald Trump for ordering airstrikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a longtime ally of Russia’s, warn that a prolonged war in the Middle East is not in America’s best interests. Even more concerning, many contend, is a prolonged war in the Middle East with the potential of direct conflict with Russia. Trump now finds himself in the bizarre position of an overnight mainstream media about-face. Those who warn Trump’s relationship with Russia is too contentious, in many prior occasions, participated in the chorus of invective accusing Trump of being too close to Russia, of indulging a “bromance” and “love story” with Putin. At one point during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Democratic campaign platform almost exclusively became warning that a President Trump would allow the nefarious Putin to take over the world. Soundly defeated, the Democrats alleged that Putin had “hacked” the election on Trump’s behalf. Neither critics nor supporters of Trump’s
Duterte Promises China ‘Not Even One Gun’ in South China Sea After Call for Occupation
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte shocked international observers last week with a call to occupy the uninhabited islands of the South China Sea before China colonized them, an apparent about-face from his months-long campaign to improve bilateral…
North Korea: Friendship with Syria ‘Will Be Strengthened and Developed’
The government of North Korea sent a “message of greeting to Bashar al-Assad” on Thursday meant to congratulate Assad for “the 70th anniversary of the [Baath Arab Socialist] Party’s founding.” North Korean state media published the congratulatory note…
Chinese State Media: Trump Struck Syria to Show He Is ‘No Businessman President’
China’s state newspaper The Global Times published an editorial criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to conduct airstrikes in Syria, suggesting it was made “in haste,” but also observed that Trump appears to want “prove to the world that he i…
Assad Regime: Trump Airstrikes Make U.S. a ‘Partner’ of Islamic State
The government of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has condemned U.S. airstrikes on a Syrian airbase in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by Assad troops that killed dozens of civilians, including children.
The Ten Major Military Players Fighting for the Heart of Syria
On Thursday, following the publication of gruesome images of the victims of an apparent chemical attack on civilians, reports surfaced that President Donald Trump ordered a missile attack on a base in Syria. The reports follows a week in which President Trump responded to an alleged chemical weapons attack by dictator Bashar al-Assad by noting it “crossed many red lines” and had changed his thinking on Syria. The President refused to elaborate earlier in the week on how he would approach the six-year-old civil war and the sprawling web of armed factions fighting each other within Syria’s borders, likely in part due to the complex nature of the fighting. The Syrian Civil War is not being fought solely between Assad’s soldiers and anti-Assad rebels, but by a diverse cast of characters staking their territorial claims in isolated regions of the country, sometimes failing to interact with each other at all, and their patron nations looking to stake a claim in the heart of the Middle East. At least ten major armed groups, including the armies of at least five sovereign nations, have entered the fray in Syria. Governments: Bashar al-Assad/The Government of Syria The Syrian army is the official sovereign military