A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.
Venezuela's government came under renewed pressure on Tuesday when regional body Organization of American States called for an emergency meeting.
OAS head Luis Almagro wants members to evaluate whether Venezuela has suffered an "unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order".
Venezuelan opposition politicians had urged the OAS to call the meeting.
The move could lead to Venezuela being suspended from the OAS.
With help from U.S. forces, the Kurdish offensive against ISIS in Iraq continues to make gains. But how far will the Kurds go? And with what consequences?
MUFTI, Iraq — The pickup trucks on their way to this village in northern Iraq on Sunday kicked up the dry earth on the dirt track, clouding the air and limiting the visibility for the drivers approaching the hamlet just wrested from the so-called Islamic State with the help of elite American soldiers operating now in both Iraq and Syria.
Engines roared as the cars accelerated to avoid getting stuck in the loose earth, drowning out the drone of coalition warplanes circling above in the gradually building offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, conquered by ISIS two years ago.
Then, without warning, a sharp explosion tore through the air, and a column of smoke billowed upwards. The fighters milling around a school building at the edge of the village barely took note—this was one of nine suicide attacks the Kurds had to fend off during the day’s fighting. Previous engagements had set the arid fields on fire, and pillars of smoke reached for the sky all around Mufti.
WNU editor: The liberation of Mosul will be an Iraqi affair .... but to get there they will need support, and it looks like the Kurds have a high price attached to that support.
A measure of enslaved people has increased by almost 30% since 2014.
Australian human rights group Walk Free Foundation measured the prevalence of slavery in the 167 most populous countries for its 2016 Global Slavery Index.
The index found instances of slavery in every one of the countries looked at, with 45.8 million people enslaved overall—that’s up from 35.8 million in 2014. The forms of slavery included were sex trafficking, debt bondage, and forced labor. This estimate is more than double that of the United Nation’s International Labor Organization, though the U.N. doesn’t consider all forms of slavery.
As Iraqi forces pressed an offensive Tuesday to dislodge Islamic State militants from Fallouja, conditions are worsening for tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the city, and a leading aid group raised alarm over an unfolding “human catastrophe.”
Islamic State fighters launched a fierce counterattack on the southern edge of the city, slowing the progress of the elite Iraqi counterterrorism troops, and the militants reportedly corralled civilians into a single neighborhood for use as human shields.
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Almost 46 million people are living as slaves globally with the greatest number in India but the highest prevalence in North Korea, according to the third Global Slavery Index launched on Tuesday with Australian actor Russell Crowe.
The index, by Australia-based human rights group Walk Free Foundation, increased its estimate of people born into servitude, trafficked for sex work, or trapped in debt bondage or forced labor to 45.8 million from 35.8 million in 2014.
Andrew Forrest, founder of Walk Free, said the rise of nearly 30 percent was due to better data collection, although he feared the situation was getting worse with global displacement and migration increasing vulnerability to all forms of slavery.
* U.S. more willing to upset Pakistan as it pursues the Taliban
* Congress weighs new restrictions on aid to Pakistan military
The U.S. drone strike that killed the Taliban's top leader as he traveled through Pakistan reflects just how much the United States is willing to disregard an ally it increasingly sees as an obstacle to securing peace in Afghanistan.
The May 21 killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour was an embarrassment to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government because it highlighted how -- five years after commandos killed Osama Bin Laden near an elite military academy -- a top threat to the U.S. was able to enter and leave the country with impunity. It was also a departure for U.S. strategy because it occurred in Baluchistan province, beyond the tribal areas where drones typically operate.
The strike, which both sides said was carried out without Pakistan's knowledge, was the latest signal by the U.S. of just how much mistrust has deepened as a result of Pakistan's continued, if tacit, support for the Taliban. It also shows how difficult it will be for the U.S. to reach a true end to its longest war.
WNU Editor: I have been saying for years that Pakistan has been playing both sides of the fence .... but it looks like that policy is now catching up to them.
The Taliban killed nine people and abducted 35 more in a series of bus attacks in the northeastern province of Kunduz on the same day that a leading humanitarian organization released a report revealing that the number of afghans internally displaced has doubled in the last three years to 1.2 million because of fighting and attacks.
Province officials said the gunmen, wearing Afghan army uniforms, forced passengers from several busses that were traveling en route to Kabul to disembark from the vehicles in Aliabad district before killing some and abducting others. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Aliabad district chief and a spokesman for Kunduz's governor blamed the attacks on Taliban militants, who have been responsible for multiple kidnappings across the country, according to the Associated Press.
I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.
