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Gathered mainly from international media sources December 2020 - March 2021 |
For recent entries click "Invalid Item"  These are news/opinion items which caught my eye. Click on the link below: 31 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" 24 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 22 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" 21 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 19 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 17 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 26 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 25 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 24 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 22 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 21 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 19 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 18 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 16 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 15 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 14 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 9 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 8 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 4 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 30 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 29 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 28 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 27 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 26 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 24 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 23 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 21 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 20 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 19 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 18 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 14 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 12 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 11 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 10 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 4 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 2 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 29 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 27 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 24 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 23 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 22 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 20 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 19 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 18 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 17 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 16 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 15/12/20 "Invalid Entry" 13 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 12 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 11 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" For earlier entries drill down the list 10 Dec 2020 - Covid: Genes hold clues to why some people get severely ill 10 Dec 2020 - Referendum for the state of Texas to secede from the U.S. ? 10 Dec 2020 - Covid-19: More single day dead than in 9/11 terror attack or on D-Day landing 10 Dec 2020 - Covid-19: France moves to night-time curfew from 15 December 10 Dec 2020 - Elon Musk has launched the latest prototype of his Starship vehicle from Texas. 9 Dec 2020 - Covid-19 - $600 direct payment to most Americans? 9 Dec 2020 - Hunter Biden under federal investigation 9 Dec 2020 - Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine data gets positive FDA review 9 Dec 2020 - Is BIG TECH censoring different ideas about COVID-19? 9 Dec 2020 - Clashes in Portland 9 Dec 2020 - UK is investigating two possible allergic reactions to Pfizer coronavirus shot 9 Dec 2020 - Open letter by the Prime Minister of Hungary to the European Union 9 Dec 2020 - VACCINE OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 9 Dec 2020 - UK EXIT FROM THE EU (Last supper?) 8 Dec 2020 - ROALD DAHL AND A WOKE APOLOGY |
| The blast that blew away Lebanon's faith in itself By Samia Nakhoul BEIRUT (Reuters) - They gather in groups, wearing black, in the shadow of buildings gutted by the explosion that shook this city on Aug. 4. Men, women and children from Christian and Muslim sects cradle portraits of their dead. Beirut has been blown back to the vigils of its 1975-1990 civil war. Then, families demanded information about relatives who had disappeared. Many never found out what happened, even as the country was rebuilt. Today’s mourners know what happened; they just don’t know why. Four months on, authorities have not held anyone responsible for the blast that killed 200 people, injured 6,000 and left 300,000 homeless. Many questions remain unanswered. Chief among them: Why was highly flammable material knowingly left at the port, in the heart of the city, for nearly seven years? For me, the port explosion rekindled memories I’ve spent 30 years trying to forget. As a reporter for Reuters, I covered the civil war, the invasion and occupation of Lebanon by Israel and Syria – and the assassinations, air strikes, kidnappings, hijackings and suicide attacks that marked all these conflicts. But the blast has left me, and many other Lebanese, questioning what has become of a country that seems to have abandoned its people. This time, the lack of answers over the catastrophe is making it difficult for an already crippled nation to rise from the ashes again. “I feel ashamed to be Lebanese,” said Shoushan Bezdjian, whose daughter Jessica – a 21-year-old nurse – died while on duty when the explosion ripped through her hospital. FALSE HOPE It took 15 years of sectarian bloodletting to destroy Beirut during the civil war. It then took 15 years to rebuild it – with lots of help from abroad. In 1990, billions of dollars poured in from Western and Gulf Arab countries and from a far-flung Lebanese diaspora estimated to be at least three times the size of the country’s 6 million population. The result was impressive: Beirut was reincarnated as a glamorous city featured in travel magazines as an exciting destination for culture and partying. Tourists came for the city’s nightlife, to international festivals in Graeco-Roman and Ottoman settings, to museums and archaeological sites from Phoenician times. Many highly educated expatriates – academics, doctors, engineers and artists – returned to take part in the rebirth of their nation. Among them was Youssef Comair, a neurosurgeon who had left Lebanon in 1982 to pursue a specialization in the United States. Comair had then worked as assistant professor of neurosurgery at UCLA and head of the epilepsy department at the Cleveland Clinic, where he pioneered the use of surgery as a therapy for epilepsy. When he landed back in Beirut to work as head of surgery at the American University of Beirut, Comair believed the country had turned a corner. Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, the industrialist-turned-politician who had rebuilt post-war Beirut, was in power and promised a renewed age of prosperity. “I was yearning for a life and a place ... receptive to all kinds of civilizations. This is what we were in Lebanon before the war,” recalled Comair. Behind the splendor of Beirut, however, post-civil war Lebanon was being built on shaky political ground. At the end of the war, militia leaders on all sides took off their fatigues, donned suits, shook hands after the 1989 Saudi-brokered Taif peace accord and largely disarmed. But the nation’s political leaders, it seemed to many here, continued to pay more attention to a revolving door of foreign patrons than to the creation of a stable state. The country’s Shi’ite Muslims turned to Iran and its Arab ally Syria, whose troops entered Lebanon in 1976 and stayed for three decades. The Sunnis looked to wealthy oil producers in the Gulf. Christians, whose political influence was heavily curtailed in the post-war deal, struggled to find a reliable partner and shifted alliances over the years. Domestic policy was dictated, at different times, by the foreign power with the deepest wallet. |
| Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps seized a South Korean-flagged tanker in Gulf waters and detained its crew, Iranian media said on Monday, amid tensions between Tehran and Seoul over Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks due to U.S. sanctions. Seoul confirmed the seizure of a South Korean chemical tanker by Iranian authorities in the waters off Oman, and demanded its immediate release. Several Iranian media outlets, including state TV, said the Guards navy captured the vessel for polluting the Gulf with chemicals. “According to initial reports by local officials, it is purely a technical matter and the ship was taken to shore for polluting the sea,” state television quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying. The semi-official Tasnim news agency published pictures showing the Guards’ speed boats escorting the tanker HANKUK CHEMI, which it said was carrying 7,200 tonnes of ethanol. It said the vessel’s detained crew members included nationals of South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar. Iran’s state TV said the tanker was being held at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port city. The ship had 20 crew members, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry. The U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet is aware of the incident and is monitoring the situation, spokeswoman Rebecca Rebarich said in response to a Reuters query. The incident comes ahead of an expected visit by South Korea’s deputy foreign minister to Tehran. Khatibzadeh said the visit would happen in coming days, during which officials would discuss Iran’s demand that South Korea release $7 billion in funds frozen in South Korean banks because of U.S. sanctions. |
| UK judge rejects extradition of 'suicide risk' Assange to United Stateslian A British judge ruled on Monday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges including breaking a spying law, saying his mental health problems meant he would be at risk of suicide. |
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