Republican senators introduce bill punishing Iran missile violations

Republican senators introduce bill punishing Iran missile violations

Special to WorldTribune.com Republican senators on March 17 introduced legislation aimed at requiring the Obama administration to impose stricter sanctions on Iran for continuous defiance of international sanctions on its ballistic missile program. The bill, introduced by Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, is the GOP’s response to what it says has been President Barack […]

End game: The former community organizer, the former KGB agent and Saddam’s missing WMD

End game: The former community organizer, the former KGB agent and Saddam’s missing WMD

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — We are witnessing an intense geopolitical chess game over Syria. The players: Barack Obama, President of the United States, former Senator, and Chicago community organizer versus Vladmir Putin, President of the Russian Federation and former Soviet KGB intelligence operative. Moscow has just made a move which appears to have […]

Syria: To avoid jumping to conclusions, don’t

Syria: To avoid jumping to conclusions, don’t

Sol W. Sanders   The old cliché has it that history is written by the victors. But the victors’ historians, too, are human. In an effort to write a narrative which the rest of us can follow, they pick up what we diginicks call a “thread”. Until someone identifies a major theme and writes [and […]

Syria’s fate: Does U.S. prefer Assad’s secular government or a hardline Islamist regime?

Syria’s fate: Does U.S. prefer Assad’s secular government or a hardline Islamist regime?

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The geopolitical chess game over Syria continues as the world enters autumn with the clouds of war swirling in the Eastern Mediterranean. The civil war which has engulfed Syria since 2011 killing 100,000, and now having crossed President Obama’s proverbial “red line” of chemical weapons use allegedly by the […]

Reports: Cash-strapped N. Korea ‘stepped up’ chemical weapons shipments to Syria

Reports: Cash-strapped N. Korea ‘stepped up’ chemical weapons shipments to Syria

Special to WorldTribune.com WASHINGTON — North Korea was believed to have sent chemical weapons technology to Syria. A United Nations panel and Western analysts agreed that Pyongyang was shipping CW technology to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. They said the CW assets could have facilitated non-conventional weapons attacks against the Sunni revolt over […]

Syrian endgame: Diplomacy, for once, may be the only option

Syrian endgame: Diplomacy, for once, may be the only option

John J. Metzler PARIS — Spiraling sectarian violence, expanding regional destabilization, and the looming danger of proxy conflict between the United States and Russia, are among the dangers in the widening Syrian civil conflict which has taken over 93,000 lives. Equally an escalating humanitarian disaster continues to engulf a country where now approximately a third […]

Korean Vortex: Reading the tea leaves

Korean Vortex: Reading the tea leaves

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The increasingly ballistic bluster pouring out from Pyongyang and threatening South Korea, Japan and the USA, with nuclear attacks has jolted East Asia into “paying attention.” Perhaps that’s the real intent of Kim Jong-Un, the new and untested Marxist monarch of the quaintly titled “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” […]

Pyongyang poker: N. Korea ups the ante with the U.S., Japan, S. Korea and China

Pyongyang poker: N. Korea ups the ante with the U.S., Japan, S. Korea and China

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Shortly after the Security Council unanimously condemned the recent North Korean missile launch and demanded that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea abandon nuclear testing, Pyongyang’s rulers decided to up the political ante. They announced that they are on the verge of a third nuclear test and for good […]

Obama’s windy words, dovish appointments and lack of resolve

Obama’s windy words, dovish appointments and lack of resolve

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — A mood of collective celebration swept over the American capital as President Barack Obama entered his second term under clear skies in freezing temperatures. It was as though the country were taking a break from fears about the economy, the next “fiscal cliff” and debate on […]

Remembering Vaclav Havel who inspired freedom fighters from E. Europe to N. Korea, China

Remembering Vaclav Havel who inspired freedom fighters from E. Europe to N. Korea, China

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — One year ago the renowned author, playwright, and former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel died at age 75. In tribute to this extraordinary European Renaissance Man, I’m reissuing my column in the spirit of memory and the season. “Havel’s career as literary figure, intellectual and a political […]