via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
The 2013 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference wasn’t quite the same show of arrogant power that it usually is. There seems to have been a note of unusual concern among the 13,000 or so assembled activists. And those concerns echo some of [...]
via Lobe Log
by Marsha B. Cohen
Newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is scheduled to meet with Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday morning, March 5. There’s more to this meeting than one might infer from harrumphing members of the right who see this meeting as one more opportunity [...]
The Trillion-Dollar Concept That No One Can Define
by Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman
via Tom Dispatch
Imagine a labyrinthine government department so bloated that few have any clear idea of just what its countless pieces do. Imagine that tens of billions of tax dollars are disappearing into it annually, black hole-style, since it can’t pass a [...]
via IPS News
Ending a long and controversial battle, the U.S. Senate Tuesday voted 58-41 to confirm former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as President Barack Obama’s new secretary of defence.
The confirmation, which followed a more-lopsided 71-27 vote to end a Republican-led filibuster against the decorated Vietnam War veteran, broke mainly along party lines, [...]
by Jim Lobe
via IPS News
Despite an appeal Thursday by 15 right-wing Republican senators for President Barack Obama to withdraw the nomination of Chuck Hagel as his next defence secretary, the former Republican senator from Nebraska appears virtually certain to be confirmed as Pentagon chief by the full Senate next week.
The fact [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
As President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel approaches, one senses desperation from the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. Obama’s scheduled stop in the West Bank has all the trappings of an empty gesture masking the real goal of creating coordination between the President and Israeli [...]
via Lobe Log
by Emile Nakhleh
As President Obama begins his second term and John Kerry becomes the new Secretary of State, they are faced with worrisome uncertainty in Egypt, civil war in Syria, repression in Bahrain, a moribund peace process, and a defiant Iran. In order to help create a stable Middle East [...]
via Lobe Log
by Charles Naas
My dear friend and colleague, Henry Precht, in his discussion Wednesday about the sad path of US-Iran affairs in the last 30 years, did not mention that a day after his snowy trip to the State Department, the Embassy in Tehran was under heavy [...]
via Lobe Log
by Charles Naas
On the Washington Post’s front page February 2 there is a photo of Mrs. Clinton departing the State Department surrounded by admiring staff members with a big smile on her face. She already looks five years younger. And why not? The burden of the Secretary of State is [...]
via Lobe Log
by Marsha B. Cohen
The hearings to confirm Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense seem to have been obsessively focused on Israel, and on the threat Iran poses to Israel, with little interest on the part of most senators on Hagel’s views of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea. Several senators seemed [...]
En Español
The Latest
From IPS News
- Amid Record Displaced Persons, Migrant Remittances Spike—New IOM Report
- How do Taxes Drive the Sustainable Development Goals?
- A Russian Veto Threatens to Trigger a Nuclear Arms Race in Outer Space
- Working to Keep Náhuat, the Language of the Pipil People, from Vanishing in El Salvador
- Many African Nations Making Progress in the Rule of Law
- Civil Society Scores LGBTQI+ Rights Victory in Dominica
- 1.8 Million More Palestinians Doomed to Poverty if Gaza War Persists
- LDCs Need Concessional Grants, Not Loans, Say Experts
- Media Freedom Declining Across Europe, With Implications for Rule of Law
- UN Secretary-General’s message for World Press Freedom Day
- Online fundraising for IPS Inter Press Service at Razoo