Written by Jerusalem Post on .
Posted in Headlines.
Former Portuguese PM Antonio Guterres was elected UN Secretary General - He is considered friendly to Israel and was close to Peres
Guterres is a a vocal advocate for refugees
United Nations, Oct.7.─ Incoming United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been and will always be a friend of Israel, former Israeli officials who have met with him told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Guterres came to Israel in 1993 as secretary-general of the Portuguese Socialist Party and leader of Portugal’s opposition.
Bogota, Oct.3.─ Colombians narrowly rejected a peace deal with Marxist guerrillas in a referendum on Sunday, plunging the nation into uncertainty and dashing President Juan Manuel Santos' painstakingly negotiated plan to end the 52-year war.
The surprise victory for the "no" camp poured cold water on international joy, from the White House to the Vatican, at what had seemed to be the end of the longest-running conflict in the Americas.
Written by Wall Street Journal on .
Posted in Headlines.
Even if voters approve the tainted bargain with narco-terrorists, it won’t bring peace
Up to 2012 ─not counting the last 4 years─ FARC killed 177,307 civilians in their guerrilla operations
FARC and the Colombian armed forces lost 40,787 in combat
Thousands of girls and boys under 14 were forced to join as FARC soldiers
Sept.25.─ The paradox of Obama foreign policy is that its compromises with enemies of liberty in the interest of peace are leaving the world more violent, polarized and dangerous. This is especially true in Latin America.
On Oct. 2, Colombia will hold a plebiscite to ask the nation to approve or reject an Obama-backed agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. The deal gives the FARC amnesty for its war crimes, which include the recruitment of thousands of child soldiers, massacres of villages, political executions, bombings and kidnappings.
Under the agreement, negotiated and signed in Havana, the FARC will also get unelected seats in Congress and special welfare benefits. It will be given dozens of radio stations—so that it can disseminate its propaganda, a privilege no other political party has.
Turnout from 120-nation Cold War-era bloc has paled in comparison to past meetings with only 10 heads of state showing
Margarita Island, Sept.19.─ Only a handful of leaders have travelled to a meeting of a large Cold War-era bloc in Venezuela in an embarrassment for the crisis-hit socialist government.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has touted the 17th meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement as one that would "be remembered for centuries", as the unpopular leftist seeks to bolster his international legitimacy.
Middle East, Sept.8.─ The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says 4475 people were killed in the nation's horrific civil war during July. Of these, 1289 were civilians, including 263 children.
Almost three quarters of these civilian casualties were killed in airstrikes by the government or its ally, Russia, and other attacks by the pro-government side, SOHR said.
Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, more than 400,000 people have been killed, between 4-to-5 million people have left Syria as refugees and about 8 million have been internally displaced.
The government is responsible for the highest civilian body count, but it does not have a monopoly on atrocities. Among their opponents is ISIS, whose sadism is well known.
But many of the other armed opposition groups, including those affiliated to the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC), share a similar Islamist ideology to ISIS. Even secular affiliates to the SNC have, like ISIS, made videos advertising their own cruelty.
Rojava
Amid this carnage, there has emerged a region of hope: the self-administered areas of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) and Northern Syria.
