Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — “Since last summer’s onslaught by terrorists of the so-called ISIL, Iraq has been living through one of the most difficult phases of its modern history,” said Jan Kubis, the UN’s special representative, in a sobering assessment of the current situation in Iraq. Yet in a […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler NEW YORK — A rhetorical tsunami followed the signing of the landmark nuclear limitation deal between Iran and six world powers in Vienna. On the one hand President Barack Obama and his tireless Secretary of State John Kerry presented a technically well-crafted plan which would supposedly keep the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — China’s Premier Li Keqiang descended upon Paris for a shopping spree; signing contracts and making deals which will energize the still anemic French economy. The French put on the Ritz as even Francois Hollande’s Socialist government can do so well; the impressive ceremony at the Elysee […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — “Terrorism: the Shockwave of Bloody Friday,” headlined the French daily Le Monde, after a series of deadly, coordinated, and barbaric attacks by radical Islamists on three continents. The massacre of twenty-eight European (mostly British) tourists in Tunisia at a beach resort, the grisly beheading of a […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — International development assistance still remains a vital element in reducing global poverty. What’s known as Official Development Assistance (ODA) has now reached record levels of over $135 billion annually and is channeled to a group of 148 countries ranging from the poorest of the poor such […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The number of refugees fleeing their native lands as well as people being internally displaced in their home countries has surged beyond even the most dire predictions. Just six months ago, a UN report launched an urgent appeal for $16.4 billion to assist 58 million […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Facing the onslaught of wanton destruction, cultural pillage, and a growing black market for stolen antiquities, both Iraq and Syria are feeling the brunt not only of the ideological violence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but the barbaric “cultural cleansing” […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Describing the situation as a “collapse of law and order” in the territories controlled by the self-proclaimed rebel Republics, and amid on- going hostilities between the Ukrainian government troops and Russian backed separatists, a scathing new UN report overviews a fast deteriorating human rights situation […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Amid modest economic growth worldwide, East Asia still leads the way. That’ s according to the UN’s updated “World Economic Situation Prospects” where the global economic growth is expected to register 2.8 percent this year, a downward revision of 0.3 percent from an earlier forecast. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The fall of the critically important city of Ramadi to terrorists, the widening humanitarian crisis throughout the country involving millions of displaced persons, and the continuing pressures on a still-fragile central government in Baghdad, bode ill for Iraq’s future stability and security. These setbacks for […]