French defense ministry officials have said that they are planning to make a withdrawal from Mali by April. Since January 11, when the French military began to bomb and launch a ground invasion into this resource-rich country, the government in Paris has declared that its operations are limited and they were only there as a precursor to the intervention of a regional force from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Although several thousand troops from various African states including Chad, Nigeria as well as the national army of Mali have entered the battle alongside the French, the former colonial power also made an appeal for the United Nations to take over the operations which are really designed to secure the resources of Mali for the benefit of western industrialized states. Earlier UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had publicly stated that direct intervention by the international body would jeopardize its personnel carrying out humanitarian work inside the country and throughout the region.
Category: Russia
The policy you have when you don’t have a policy Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a statement about the country’s national security policy to a carefully selected crowd of defense, public service, and academic personnel at the Australian National University late last month. The 58 page paper titled Strong and Secure: A Strategy for Australia’s National Security supersedes the last one given by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd back in 2008 and is considered a supplement to the White Paper, Australia in the Asian Century presented by Premier Gillard last October. The paper outlines the country’s assessment of priorities, risks, and capabilities.
Tehran — Azadeh, a graduate law student from Tehran University, on the sidelines of Iran’s Third Annual Hollywoodis (www.hollywoodism.orghttp) reminded her interlocutors, of the obvious damming admissions last week by two US politicians: “It…
President Obama ran for president in 2008 on a promise of closing down the U.S. prisoner detention center at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Recently, Obama went back on his word by…
A Ukrainian-made Zenith-3SL rocket carrying a US-made Intelsat-27 spacecraft has crashed into the ocean seconds after being launched from a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean. A search operation is currently underway. “Approximately 40 seconds…
Only days after American Vice President Joe Biden made a very public and tantalizing offer of bilateral talks between the US and Iran, there then follows another round of punitive trade sanctions imposed by Washington…
GATA and «golden cartel» By the end of XX the most meticulous, nit-picking experts started to suspect there was something wrong with the gold market operations. To be exact: even if the gold…
“………..Their defeat Doth by their own insinuation grow. ‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensèd points Of mighty opposites.” – Hamlet on the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. …
The Real New World Order. Bankers Taking over the World How quickly best laid plans become passé. New world orders come, it seems, as frequently as eclipses. The old world order (ancien régime), along with 16 million people, died during the Great European War which began on June 28, 1914 when the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo. (Today he would be called a terrorist.) This assassination sent nations that had no desire to go to war into the most destructive war the world had yet experienced. Europe at the beginning of 1914 consisted of six major empires and an assortment of minor states that the major empires didn’t care much about. The six major empires, (the Austro-Hungarian, French, German, British, Ottoman, and Russian) were ensnared in military alliances (much like the US is today) which were formed to keep the peace. The diplomats, like those today, believed that forming alliances that balanced the powers of different groups would keep them from attacking each other. The Central Powers consisted of Austro-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire; the Triple Entente consisted of the other three. Peace, the diplomats thought was assured. What happened?
The Times Was Right to Report — at Last — on a Secret Drone Base President Bush wants to keep the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia despite reported grumbling from the Saudis that they would like…