ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Palestinian "volunteer forces" stand guard while NGOs tend to Yarmouk camp residents receiving food aid, medical assistance and evacuation. Palestinians didn't jump into the fray in Syria. They were dragged into it - violently and reluctantly. Here is the story of how and why Palestinians and their 14 refugee camps became strategic targets in the Battle for Syria. A small UNRWA van delivers boxes of staple foods to Yarmouk camp residents who wait at a pick-up point. Bread donated by the Syrian government lies atop the boxes. My first visit to Yarmouk took place a few days after 20 people were killed in the Palestinian camp’s first major shelling incident on August 2, 2012. Residents showed me the damage caused by the first mortar – which hit the roof of a small apartment building not far from Tadamoun, a Damascus suburb where rebels and security forces were clashing daily. As bystanders rushed to investigate the damage, a second shell hit the narrow street outside where o

US President Barack Obama looks on as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Photograph: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images The United States and China have unveiled a secretly negotiated deal to reduce their greenhouse gas output, with China agreeing to cap emissions for the first time and the US committing to deep reductions by 2025. The pledges in an agreement struck between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jingping, provide an important boost to international efforts to reach a global deal on reducing emissions beyond 2020 at a United Nations meeting in Paris next year. China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, has agreed to cap its output by 2030 or earlier if possible. Previously China had only ever pledged to reduce the rapid rate of growth in its emissions. Now it has also promised to increase its use of energy from zero-emission sources to 20% by 2030. The United State

According to previews of Obama’s Wednesday speech, the very airstrikes the public has been scared into supporting will reportedly expand fast – not only in Iraq but into Syria. Photograph: Bixentro / Flickr via Creative Commons Did you know that the US government’s counterterrorism chief Matthew Olson said last week that “there’s no credible information” that the Islamic State (Isis) is planning an attack on America and that there’s “no indication at this point of a cell of foreign fighters operating in the United States”? Or that, as the Associated Press reported , “The FBI and Homeland Security Department say there are no specific or credible terror threats to the US homeland from the Islamic State militant group”? Probably not, because as the nation barrels towards yet another war in the Middle East and President Obama prepares to address that nation on the “offensive phase” of his military plan Wednesday night , mainstream media pundits and the usual uber-hawk politicians are

File photo shows South Sudan’s soldiers in the border state of Unity. South Sudanese government forces have clashed with rebels in several areas across the country, only two days after both sides agreed to a ceasefire. Fresh fighting erupted in the oil-rich north and in a number of other regions just 48 hours after President Salva Kiir and the rebel leader, Riek Machar, signed a ceasefire deal in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Both sides have accused each other of breaching the new ceasefire deal. A military spokesman for the rebels blamed government troops for launching coordinated attacks in the states of Unity, Jonglei and Upper Nile. Lul Ruai Koang said, “The government is entirely responsible for these unnecessary attacks motivated by its desires and attempts to recapture oil fields under our control.” Meanwhile, the South Sudanese army said it repelled an attack that was started by the rebels. South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between

US Secretary of State John Kerry (R), former top EU diplomat Catherine Ashton (2nd L), Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) and Omani Foreign Minister Yussef bin Alawi (2nd R) pose for a photo in Muscat, November 9, 2014. Finian Cunningham US ‘must soften tone’ on Iran ‘US not after win-win nuclear solution’ It seems like a cruel twist of fate that the mid-term US elections should result in a Republican-controlled Congress - only weeks ahead of the November deadline for a nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers. With the more hawkish Republican Party now dominant in both the Senate and House of Representatives, it looks certain that we can kiss goodbye to a possible resolution of the nuclear dispute and the lifting of Western sanctions on Iran. Delegates from the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are to meet with counterparts from Iran in the coming days to begin the final countdown to sealing an accord on the nuclear standoff - set for No

Rather than grovel and beg for the U.S. government to respect our privacy, these innovators have taken matters into their own hands, and their work may change the playing field completely. People used to assume that the United States government was held in check by the constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and which demands due process in criminal investigations, but such illusions have evaporated in recent years. It turns out that the NSA considers itself above the law in every respect and feels entitled to spy on anyone anywhere in the world without warrants, and without any real oversight. Understandably these revelations shocked the average citizen who had been conditioned to take the government's word at face value, and the backlash has been considerable. The recent "Today We Fight Back" campaign to protest the NSA's surveillance practices shows that public sentiment is in the right place. Whether these kinds of petitions and p

RIA Novosti/Alexey Filippov NATO doesn’t have the necessary funds to meet the demands of US lawmakers and purchase French-built Mistral warships in order to prevent Russia from getting the vessels, a military source said. "NATO’s budget is too small to not only purchase Russia-ordered Mistral helicopter carriers, but to even compensate France half of the penalties in accordance with the contract,” a military source in Brussels, Belgium told TASS news agency. NATO’s military and civilian budget for 2014 amounts $ 1.6 billion, while the penalty for non-delivery of the two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia could reach $ 3 billion, the source explained. “Moreover, NATO simply doesn’t have a structure that that could receive the ships. The Alliance has almost no military equipment of its own. So there would be no use in the helicopter carriers even if the money to purchase them is found,” the source said. The idea of buying the Mistral vessels is “absurd from a military point of vi

Russia's President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with his China's counterpart Xi Jinping (RIA Novosti/Mikhail Klimentiev) President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have signed a memorandum of understanding on the so-called “western” gas supplies route to China. The agreement paves the way for a contract that would make China the biggest consumer of Russian gas. Russia’s so-called “western” or "Altay" route would supply 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year to China. The new supply line comes in addition to the “eastern” route, through the “Power of Siberia” pipeline, which will annually deliver 38 bcm of gas to China. Work on that pipeline route has already begun after a $400 billion deal was clinched in May. “After we have launched supplies via the “western route,” the volume of gas deliveries to China can exceed the current volumes of export to Europe,” Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller told reporters, commenting on the deal. Speaking to journalists on the