Time for Barack Obama to clear up a mystery: What possible benefit motivates his Iran policy?

Time for Barack Obama to clear up a mystery: What possible benefit motivates his Iran policy?

Special to WorldTribune.com By Sol W. Sanders In all the torturous puzzles of the current Mideast chaos, perhaps the greatest unknown is what the Obama Administration thinks it is accomplishing with its Iran policy. Again, in the past few days, we have had evidence that President Barack Obama is moving – this time secretly – […]

Turkey, once a staunch NATO ally, enters uncharted waters under strongman Erdogan

Turkey, once a staunch NATO ally, enters uncharted waters under strongman Erdogan

Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — A vital American ally has gone geopolitically adrift in the wake of Turkey’s failed military coup, and the subsequent crackdown on all forms of domestic political dissent by the strongman ruler Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The bloody coup in which hundreds died, nonetheless served as a tragic […]

Twilight zone: S. Korea missiles up against constant threats from the land of make believe

Twilight zone: S. Korea missiles up against constant threats from the land of make believe

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk The prospect of a missile war between North and South Korea poses a threat to regional stability that previously seemed unimaginable. Images of North and South Korean gunners firing ballistic missiles at one another from redoubts far north and south of the demilitarized zone are edging closer to reality […]

De-pressed? The media has embarrassed itself right out of contention in Campaign 2016

De-pressed? The media has embarrassed itself right out of contention in Campaign 2016

Special to WorldTribune.com By Sol W. Sanders Perhaps not since 1936 has there been such an abject failure through prejudicial media reporting of a presidential election. Then, the enormously popular weekly, The Literary Digest, predicted a strong victory for the Republican conservative candidate Kansas Gov. Alf Landon against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR bidding for a […]

France — Summer of terror now and in the 1960s

France — Summer of terror now and in the 1960s

Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — Imagine for a moment arriving at Sunday morning religious service only to see the doors of the church guarded by camouflage-clad soldiers with automatic weapons. Well, this was the stark reality when we arrived at our neighborhood church, a structure dating from the 15th century, but […]

Movements toward war in the Far East: China-N. Korea face off with the U.S.-backed powers

Movements toward war in the Far East: China-N. Korea face off with the U.S.-backed powers

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk On the chessboard of Northeast, East and Southeast Asia, the players are inexorably arranging their pieces. A naval exercise, a warplane flyover, a flotilla of fishing boats, a missile launch ― all such gestures, bloodless today, evoke the image of great powers maneuvering for bloody moves tomorrow. It’s as […]

Shame! The world’s silence at the execution of an 85-year-old French priest is inexcusable

Shame! The world’s silence at the execution of an 85-year-old French priest is inexcusable

Special to WorldTribune.com By Sol W. Sanders The almost total absence of public mourning for an 85-year-old Christian priest whose throat was slit by Islamicist terrorists while he led prayer in a small church in Normandy, France, is a scandal. Even the French have demonstrated less feeling for this horrendous deed than one would expect […]

Can a nation so divided against itself stand?

Can a nation so divided against itself stand?

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― The two top American political parties are so badly fractured you wonder if they’ll ever come together again. And that’s to say nothing of the American public: that is, the vast majority who don’t participate in party politics at all. It’s difficult to know which party is […]

The hellish barbarism spreading in the Mideast has arrived in France

The hellish barbarism spreading in the Mideast has arrived in France

Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — The recurring terrorist attacks which have plagued France seem to have no bounds nor mercy. The murder of a Catholic priest saying Mass in a church near Rouen by two Islamic State thugs brought the crisis to a new low. The daily Le Figaro headlined “Murdered […]

As red-hot campaign rhetoric intensifies, the North Koreans are taking notes

As red-hot campaign rhetoric intensifies, the North Koreans are taking notes

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― The venom of opposing forces in the U.S. presidential campaign inspires comparison to the rhetoric of Kim Jong-un and his propaganda machine. Insults, accusations, and lies are common currency of the opposing candidates. Having just watched the hyper speech-making that accompanied the nomination of Donald Trump at […]