By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Wednesday morning, a day before Kofi Annan’s cease fire was scheduled to reach its final implementation in Syria, and a day after Syrian forces were supposed to withdraw from major population centers, I read on BBC’s Internet site that “Kofi Annan, says he has received assurances from Damascus that it [...]
By Peter Huessy WASHINGTON, D.C. — Striking a deal with Russia’s Vladimir Putin requires a certain amount of cunning, diplomacy and, more than anything else, a “correlation of forces” on your side. Unfortunately, the United States may not be in the strongest of positions to strike a cooperative deal with Russia on missile defense, and [...]
Posted April 8, 2012 Garry Fabian MELBOURNE, 4 April – Victoria Police will this month seek to extradite a former teacher at a Melbourne Jewish orthodox school from the United States over a child sex abuse scandal that was allegedly covered up by the school. Parents allege that Yeshivah College in East St Kilda assisted [...]
By Matthew RJ Brodsky WASHINGTON, D.C. — While Western and Arab countries struggle to find a way to assist the Syrian people, Moscow is continuing to do all it can to save the Assad regime of Syria. Speaking on a trip to Azerbaijan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Syrian opposition wouldn’t be able [...]
By Matthew RJ Brodsky WASHINGTON–Asma Assad was heralded as the great white hope for reform in Syria. But that narrative was always false, and a lot of starry-eyed politicians, experts and reporters should have known better. From “A Rose in the Desert” to the target of European Union sanctions, what a difference a year has [...]
Posted April 1, 2012 Compiled by Garry Fabian Scholarships to perpetuate Sir Zelman’s Memory CANBERRA, 29 March –The late Sir Zelman Cowen understood the power of education to transform people’s lives. Now new scholarships named in his honour will help young Australians progress their own education and change for the better. Prime Minister Julia Gillard [...]
By Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. When one of the modern world’s most brutal and fascist nations — Communist China, run like a brazen bully by the Chinese Communist Party — equates the revered and freedom-loving Dalai Lama with the German Nazis of the Hitler regime [...]
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — It was, it appears, a Muslim radical behind the massacre in Toulouse — a French-born petty thief who traveled in Afghanistan and Pakistan and was already under surveillance by French authorities. It was not, as first thought, French neo-Nazis. To which the question arises, “Does it matter which?” Yes, [...]
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM– In the profound lack of certainty and the possibility of dire consequences concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, it is possible to conceive of a scenario that is less than perfect, but way short of catastrophic. Let’s start with some basics. In politics, it is generally impossible to achieve ideal solutions for [...]
By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — Witnesses said the 24-year old man on the scooter pulled up to the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, France. It was just before 8 a.m.—a new morning in the rustic community. Students were arriving for class, chatting, joking, and thinking of their sunrise prayers. Suddenly, the man began [...]
