SSSC Politics Conflict

After years of bloody warfare, it’s time to recognize what the Syrian dictator rules over: a chronically violent and chaotic failed state.

THIS WAS supposed to be a rare moment of cautious optimism in Libya. On April 4th António Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general, arrived in Tripoli, the capital, to prepare for a peace conference which, he hoped, would lead to long-delayed elections later this year.

But the relaxation of the embargo presents risks for the leaders of both Israel and Hamas, and it has been denounced by the Palestinian Authority.

February 5 marks the 7th anniversary of the entry into force of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) as well as the day on which the treaty’s central limits take full effect. U.S. and Russian implementation of New START provides a rare bit of good news in the U.S.-Russian relationship

A NEW Syria is emerging from the rubble of war. In Homs, which Syrians once dubbed the “capital of the revolution” against President Bashar al-Assad, the Muslim quarter and commercial district still lie in ruins, but the Christian quarter is reviving. Churches have been lavishly restored; a large crucifix hangs over the main street.

IT WAS billed as the “Great Return March”, the first step in the return of Palestinians in Gaza to the homes their grandparents lived in before Israel’s establishment in 1948. But there was little marching.

United Nations votes to allow humanitarian access and evacuations after three-day wait in face of Russian objections

Briefly after the revolution, Libya experienced a period of calm before it was plunged yet again into another conflict.

Reports of Civilian Casualties in the War Against ISIS Are Vastly Inflated « | Foreign Policy | the Global Magazine of News and Ideas

WHEN a group of teenage boys scrawled “down with the regime” on their school wall they lit the powder that ignited Syria’s civil war.

Even before the damage from those strikes had been assessed, the UN said some 40 people had been killed and 260 injured in the previous four days of clashes.

Calling for elections in the absence of stable institutions while competing for diplomatic and economic influence won’t rebuild the country — it will destroy it.

There’s a reason the current president’s approach to the war-torn country is as confused as Obama’s was. Syria is a no-win situation.

When Syria’s civil war began in 2011, the U.N. and others tallied the numbers killed in the conflict. Seven years on, an increasingly complex war means the count has stopped.

The goal was never to create a stable democracy. It was to protect civilians and prevent a massacre.

Carla Del Ponte’s resignation raises issues about how war crimes are to be investigated if a security council member decides to use veto

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